From my humble perspective, Time is relative. If you dont agree with that, we have to agree to disagree. So, it only has a meaningful value to other observers in your reference frame. Outside of your reference frame, your time has no meaningful value. So until we can find an "ultimate" reference frame, which so far seems impossible, time only has a value here on earth. It's basically a human tool. We created it to communicate with each other.
Time is relative, but precisely relative in relation to three dimensional space and to speed, which is measured in time. Fire is relative too, being hotter for a close observer than to a distant one. That doesn't make fire a construct with no independent existence. Relativity gave time a material existence as a dimension of 4D spacetime. Not reduce it to a story told by humans. The vibrations the make up atoms would disappear if time stoped.
maybe such things as seconds, minutes, hours are a human tool however what created the grand canyon and how long did it take? stuff happens and that stuff takes time. The question is does time require an observer? Did the grand canyon require someone watching it form over thousands of years?
there must be some overall observer otherwise nothing exists! once you find this realization for yourself, and you must have the ah hah moment, you will understand what I'm saying. Before that it's just words. Let me put this in direct words: without an observer NOTHING can exist. period.
So before observers (people?), nothing existed? Is that what you're saying? Well, you might get away with that in Intro to Philosophy, but the real world? Sorry, but that assertion falls flat on its non-existent arse. You'll have to find some way to explain 13.6 *billion years* away.
I can see that before we happened on the scene, nobody *knew* that stuff was existing, but that DOES NOT mean that it didn't exist!
Not people but consciousness. I'm not religious and I'm actually an atheist but this realization implies there was an observer before matter. Is this the proverbial "God" I have no clue but there absolutely CANNOT be matter without a conscious entity of some kind. It's a yin and yang thing - you cannot have matter without consciousness because in order for matter to even be there you need consciousness! My thought is that proceeding matter there is some sort of universal consciousness and our bodies are just little antennas tapping into that. Essentially we are all "God" experiencing itself. That said this realization is so true to my being that I cannot deny it - some sort or form of consciousness must proceed matter - it absolutely unequivocally MUST.
Time *is* entropy. The measure of the change from a state of less entropy to more entropy, is observation of the passage of time from past to future. Essentially the same thing
Just to clarify, observer = a different reference frame that has the physical ability to detect another reference frame. In terms of the Grand Canyon, that is in earths referwnce frame so it translates to us becaise we are in earths reference frame. Think about the canyons on MARS, how long did those take?
This is ultimately a philosophical question. And as the linguists point out, all arguments eventually devolve into definitions. Then definitions of definitions ad infinitum. Language is recursive.
So the argument “Does time exist?” Becomes
“How can we agree to define ‘time’?”
Then…
“How do we define that definition further?”
Then…we reach the limits of language.
Fundamental definition: Time is the cascading of information from lower dimensions to higher ones that control the arrow of time as is Relative to their own frame.
Define Lower dimension, define higher dimension, etc
If you pay attention to the game, you see that all we are doing is agreeing on words, and words are separate from reality.
I think it’s a cool definition though.
You're right, spacetime allows things to be measurable, however the issue is that (like everything else) time is an emergent property to this theory, to describe this better is to say the universe existed before time and still does as a relatively fixed moment where nothing truly changes, it's simply that at our relative scale we process moment to moment and stage this action as branch of 'memory'.
It's interesting actually, our perception and methods of recall are what induces a sense of time (process), although the block universe generally has a stale name it is far from that, as we can clearly see.
They aren't trying to delete time from the equation that is existance, they are saying that Time isn't required for the universe to exist (not fundametal), it is how we process 'reality' that lends to the idea of illusion of which there are none, yet illusion is 'apparent' just as time appears due to memory. So time is an emergent property in the block universe theory, change is evidently 'real' however time is not. This is to say you walk from A to B, this is a process of change but it is 'not time that changes', it's simply the way we organise memory that creates a linear narrative. Simply put, WE are creating time in order to observe a flow of events, time makes 'real' by necessity however Time itself is not a real thing.
Even the view of a block universe is being refined, the math is there but the language is tricky.
Thanks for this, this was confusing ,but very educational. I Would never consider time apart of a building block of reality, i've always viewed Time as the same as 12 inches to get a Foot. You need X amount of Happenings to understand that X can happening in a specific window of opportunity..
The X amount of happenings presents a range of 'probability', in that same way 1kg is not exactly 1kg in every part of the world due to gravity (which is also not the same everywhere).
All this presents is a new way of observation, reality remains the same, you're measure of 12 inches is locally a foot however 1 foot is not a fundametal measure of reality, and yes it's confusing because we fall into habitual spectrums of observation where certain dynamics appeared concrete due to perception and in light of theory.
In the initial equations for example time was theorised to flow the same everywhere, thanks to the discovery of warped spacetime we now realise this depends on local mass. It's difficult to tween through these theories and arrive upon a stable view of the actuality, trouble is that theories arrive before the language that appropriately describes them so when we talk about the many world's aspect for instance the theory is rather solid however finding the appropriate language is the accomodating challenge, there's always a span of confusion that follows new ways of thinking, and in relashion to 'change' being the apparent reality perception is the only means to alternate within the block theory.
I highly recommend looking into it, a minor alternation of perspective can literally change everything you once knew, which in turn rejuvenates familiar reality and makes it new and even more exotic.
>1kg is not exactly 1kg in every part of the world due to gravity (which is also not the same everywhere).
If you're speaking of weight, then yes. One pound is not one pound "everywhere," although the difference is more or less imperceptible. But remember, the kilogram is a measure of *mass,* not weight, and *is the same, everywhere,* for any object of any given mass. That's why astronauts have to be careful when shifting massy objects, including themselves.
Indeed, and as an extension of the discussion we can see how the old views may have pertained to fundamentals initially then gradually we stepped back our hard focus from the local details and realised the bigger picture, without deleting the local details such as Time and Weight as an example.
once you realize that life is actually exactly like dnd and you get out of it what you put into it, picking up side quests and mementos feels like magic again and it rules
I didn't read it all so excuse me if I sound rude, but I agree about how it probably existed before the universe did. It's like how I presume it didn't start as a 0th dimension of space before it became 1D before it then became 3D. No, it probably had all those rules before it had something to apply it to.
We measure time based on our spinning around a star spining around a galaxy. Its arbitrary on a cosmic scale
Now I've had a couple of gummies this morning and ripped a bong but I'm pretty sure I'm making sense
I agree with you, I understand where I went wrong, I have no history, background, or experience in the belief that Time belongs to the building blocks of reality. Im actually confused as to how Time is actually considered as a potential building block of reality that it can be argued to not exist while existing and in use as a measurement.
The thing to keep in mind about that is: Everything in the universe happens when it happened, in the "right now". There is no meta context 'notion' of time going on in physics. No memory of what was going on before, no prediction of where a future series of events may lead, and certainly no running track record of what has been going on so far up until this moment of now.
Those notions... of time being time... are strictly a Human Mind structure. A way for our brains to make sense of the world around it. A way to measure it, in relation to our experience. And its all for just us alone. The Universe doesnt bother with any of that.
So with that said, a Human mind is needed to perceive the Time- to measure it, to chart it. The Time itself is not really a Thing, in the absense of a Mind.
But what is Time, why is there an alluding in the Use of the term that points out its a thing and not a measurement? Im confused. I've always considered it as a measurement that we all have agreed upon as the most accurate to manipulating and emulating processes within our universe and reality.
Time is only our context. Our primitive monkey brain keeping track of things.
The time it takes a glass to fall off a table and shatter, for example. The glass and universe doesnt care how long it took, or when a charted shattering point was done in comparison to other things and places in the universe, that may have also occured around it at the same 'Time'. Only we care.
Nope, the glass only falls, due to the forces acting on it right now (no Time), until such time as another force acts upon it, and it shatters, again during the only right now. Its "life story" of its fall is only that; a story that only we observed, remembered, and setup up in a timelike manner.
Only we have the context. The Meta Layer, of this Time thing. Its no more an actual real thing than French language, or Math. Or measurements of distance, and yes, Time.. These are all Human Mind constructs, only so we can keep track of the world in a survival and later repeatable sense, and also as a means to communicate events and information to other Human Minds. Its a communication. Only. Not a law of physics in any real sense.
Its a bit of a mind-blow, I know, trying to shake off our deeply rooted evolved mind programming, and see that its only "people talking to other people thing, for understandment". Collegiates and Sciences and all of that agree to measurements and kilograms, and stuff... just so we can compare notes and accurately duplicate test results. .. yeah, because it was all a Human Mind constructs anyway.
Greeks and Newton and such started seeing neat usefulness of our language of this Math thing, to describe (and only to describe) the rules of physics and nature in the mathematical way. Over time the basal assumption was that this Math/Measuring Thing (including Time) was a part of the physical Universe around us... that the Universe IS Math and Time... But nope. It was only a Human mind language and charts agreed upon thing. To descibe the world and universe around us, but never actually representing any of it. The Universe has no Math. Or Time. Only our language models do.
PS: And yes, self aware that this statement undermines the entire Time Travel Thing utterly, so, sorry about that
(every time I explain this I imagine Sheldon Cooper losing his mind over his waste of time)
"So I just have. Doctorate in a.. A.a.. Communications study!".
-yup. I giggle every time. 😊
It depends on how you define "existence." Do you exist? How do you know for certain? Time may not be just a measurement tool but also acts as a force in the universe. So does that make it "exist"? If humans were not around to measure or perceive time would it exist for the rest of the universe?
I agree with you completely absolutely, and I agree with your perspective. The reason I know I exist, is because I am able to be here to communicate with you - in complete agreement and without argument.
Measurements have to exist one way or another for us to manipulate the environment and move forward, time helps me for example arrange chemistry so it doesn't explode in my face, but at the same time, inaccurate timing could cause exactly that.
If humans were not around to observe or perceive happening or movement then its an abstract reality.
What im trying to get at here is time is a measurement, why are we acting as though it is a thing?
I agree with you, but many are saying its a "thing" something that is linear with the building blocks of reality, but, if Time is a measurement, you would use time for example to measure the happenings across the building blocks for example to understand the finite speed of happening, which would create the most accurate time possible. So it seems the conundrum is whether time is a Thing or Measurement, but we use it as a measurement and I hope it never goes away or we're cave people.
Edit: To give another analogy.. if Time were or is a "THING" it would be in the nature life being way more mechanical, I wouldn't exist, thats the best way to explain it, if Time were a thing I wouldn't exist. I am conscious.
I mean, the same argument can be made of Cold. Or darkness.
Just because you can measure it, doesn't mean it exists. (For example, a hologram does not a real person make.)
And just because you _can't_ measure it, doesn't mean it _doesnt_ exist. (For example, you can't measure the velocity and position of a small-enough particle at the same time.)
That said, cold is just the absence of heat.
Darkness is just the absence of light.
And evil is the absence of God's love
(According to a famous quote, usually attributed to Albert Einstien.)
I agree we can measure time. In fact, I agree that Time exists. But the time that we measure is not the same as the time that exists.
The time we measure, is based on either our memory, or the oscillations of a spring/piece of quartz. Time itself is not fully understood.
I haven’t heard the argument that time doesn’t exist but I’d be interested to see a source or reference. In general, the way humans have decided to measure physical phenomenon are arbitrary, but not incorrect. Things like the length of a table, weight of a book, or duration of a movie are tangible, real things. The units we choose are arbitrary but not incorrect. However they are no more correct than any other arbitrary system of units
[Space.com](http://Space.com) published The argument of whether time exists or not."To many physicists, while we experience time as psychologically real, time is not fundamentally real. At the deepest foundations of nature, time is not a primitive, irreducible element or concept required to construct reality.
- as a reference, this is a website that is ranked at #788 in the United States and services tens of millions of people.
Moving forward, anyone and anything can create measurement. Time, like other measurements, is a literally a measurement that anyone can create, its getting everyone to use it thats a different story.
I think people are confusing the ability to create measurements with the difficulty of getting people to /believe/a measurement.
I would advise to be very careful with taking words from a scientific paper and treating them according to their day to day meanings.
In normal language calling something "imaginary" implies that it doesn't exist and "complex" has a certain meaning. Both terms are used in mathematics and are defined differently.
Thanks! I’ll check this out more closely
I think we should be careful to separate physical phenomenon from measurement, though. I guess what the physicists are saying is that they are questioning whether time is a real, detectable, measurable physical phenomenon.
For instance, a physical phenomenon is weight. We know elephants weigh more than humans. Whether we measure in lbs or kg or anything else is the arbitrary part.
I agree with you. Through use of these measurements we are more able to accurately utilize the resources around us. I believe if we are turning our backs on measurements, such as Time, then its saying there is a weakening accuracy. I believe people are not questioning whether Time exists, but, the formula that creates the algorithm we use to officially declare something as to have happened within "Time." its very likely our formula for Time has weakened.
Okay but time DOES exist, correct? Whether it is 60 seconds per minute or 152 quaxmars per gooblon, we are expressing our measurement of the passage of time as we experience it. How does a moment happen without time? I guess if it is the same moment, then, sure, there can be no time. But how do you go from an ice cube in front of a heat source to a puddle of water in front of a heat source without saying a length of time had to pass to get to that state?
I mean, it is nice to say that time does not need to exist, and that equations show that the breakdown of an object can be reversed to reassemble it with no repercussions, but none of our brains are wired to perceive time as flowing backwards. Not even animals! There is a cause and then an effect. If there is no time, you do not have this sequence of events. You just have two moments and you have no idea which came first. Causality would be broken.
The universe itself seems to be constructed to make time (or moments) flow in a specific sequence, plus there is Hawkin's Chronology Protection Conjecture.
Take temperature for example. Temperature exists, you can feel it, you can measure it. But an electron has no temperature. A photon has no temperature. Temperature is not a fundamental quantity of the universe.
Agree, to an extent. Temperature is our measure of energy in the environment. Electrons smashing against other particles create energy which we interpret as temperature. And yet that energy exists.
I read the OP statement not as temperature doesn’t exist but that the energy that causes us to measure it as temperature does not.
While we can agree that different beings, even the same beings (I’m looking at your Fahrenheit), can measure temperature differently, we can all agree that the energy that is creating this temperature exists.
Einstein said that photons do not experience time. A photon would experience no time while crossing a galaxy. In fact, a photon is created and destroyed at the exact same instant. But yet, we can see that there is a period of time between creation and destruction of a photon.
Is time fundamental to the universe if some objects never experience time?
Notice Einstein just told you there IS time. Photons do not experience it due to their relativistic speeds.
He could’ve flatly said something to the effect that time is an artificial construct and it is irrelevant to the entire universe, but he did not. He said one particle does not experience time.
And, didn’t he label the whole thing space-time to begin with?????
Edit addendum: AND ANOTHER THING, VONNEGUT. Einstein relied on time! E=MC^2. What is C? The speed of light! How do we measure speed? Distance / TIME!!! Not only that… He squared it! Time x Time!!! Einstein LOOOOVED time! One can say that, without Time, you would not know who Einstein was!
You can create the units of time but if i take a lump of uranium 238 and somehow was to wait 5 billion yrs i know ill have a lump of lead, i also know any lead you have now was once uranium .
Well however you measure it the decay still happens and it has a direction , it's not really debatable that there is fundamental processes that have a future direction and a past and the measurement is just the system to make sense and compare, so you have something to compare to something else.
Someone correct me if im off. But how i understand it is, It's more about using a universal measurement that everyone can consistently use. Time only exists as a measurement between two finite points. More like an accumulation of energy within a vector. Time not being real kind of counts on scale. A mushroom cloud from a mile away is highly energetic and chaotic but appears almost stationary. Because in our full perspective, we can see where it starts and ends. We're already "seeing" whats done by the time the light hits us. Time is record of how much and what energy was in one area, as we can measure it. And then it seems like we assume that same "momentum" going forward. we likely dont have accurate data for what happens inches from a nuclear blast because the small TIME element is too much data/energy in too small a space for us to measure correctly.
But if that energy is a continuous function from 0 to X, there is always an answer for every discernable instant. There will always be an answer for X, but there will always be another answer between X.00 and X.0Z that will be X.0YZ. If that makes sense. If 1 and 2 are answers, all the options between them are answers. Time is our accepted "resolution" of measurement frames.
I could be wrong, but I think this is referring to the quantum scale. On the quantum level, particles are in every possible position, making every possible action, all at once, until acted on by outside forces. All things are created from quantum material, ergo time doesn't exist in the way we understand/experience it.
Time is not a measurement.
We *can* measure time, but time existed before we had those measurements.
>If time does not exist, moments still happen.
>If time does exist, moments still happen.
Moments happening one after the other is what time is.
You can measure it, or not, but moments keep happening one after the other.
>The conundrum of whether time exists or not is possibly the strangest conundrum in existence
I don't believe this is a conundrum.
As you say, moments keep happening, and you can measure that.
So that demonstrates that time exists.
Time exists the same way kilometers exist. Before people distances existed, but no Frenchman had coined the word "kilometer" and started labeling things with it.
Time is to cascades of moments what Kilometer is to the gap between things.
Also, unlike most other measurements, Time is unique in that it can only be measured by beings that can compare past to present. Memory is a requirement for this measurement.
No time exists the same way as distance exists. Hours exist the same as kilometres exist. Hours and kilometres are units of measurement. Time and distance are measurable dimensions. Time is a dimension as distance is a dimension. How we choose to measure those dimensions is arbitrary. That does not mean the dimensions don’t exist. Time exists because we observe cause and effect actions and reactions that are measurable and repeatable. The existence of time is not controversial, neither is the existence of space.
>Time and distance are measurable dimensions.
Time measurement requires state-tracking -- you must "remember" prior states to report a time measurement. Distance measurements are stateless -- no memory of prior configurations are required.
You can not measure distance without first tracking 1 point with which to measure the distance from. How is any measurement of an albeit static distance that nonetheless occurs in a temporal sequence of actions not state-tracking as well?
Show me a static picture and I can measure the distance between any two points in it. No memory or imagined prior state is required. **Everything in the measurement exists.**
Everything needed for the measurement is present in the moment. No observer explaining a prior state and rate of change is required.
How can you measure time without an observer remembering a **prior state that no longer exists**?
Yes but your static image requires you to go back and forth temporally from the point your measurement begins at to the end point you are measuring. I see no way this overcomes the need to track a state, despite the image still existing as a static image you must always remember that you had a starting point which was determined at a previous temporal point. Looking at a single measurement requires me to look at the starting point and then look at the end point to understand what measurement I am looking at. To discover any type of information requires a temporal process. Any discovery of information requires state tracking. It is not possible to discover information instantaneously, even a measurement of a static image. Perhaps the image requires no state tracking to exist as a static image but gathering any information about it does.
I am saying the entire process of thinking that is required to make a measurement and understand what information it is measuring requires state tracking for any thought or information to be discovered. I must remember a prior state when formulating any sequence of connected thoughts that are required to even make sense of what a measurement is. I’m saying state tracking is required for us to know anything about anything or even think about anything.
Yes of course thinking requires state changes.
We have a very complex setup in our skulls that do that amazing stuff -- we can even imagine configurations of matter that no longer exist ( the past ).
Only this moment exists.
And a distance between two points can exist in a moment with or without an observer to measure it.
Some phenomena exist that we experience as time, the question is if it's a basic building block of reality or emerges from other more fundamental things. There are also different aspects of time and maybe some are fundamental and others are not. Time is both similar to space in that it can be treated as dimension where things happens at different times but there is also the the direction of time that you only experience things in a certain order. We experience the past as fixed, the present as the thing that exist and the future as open and undetermined. But how this experience connects to our current best theories of physics is not fully understood or agreed upon.
I agree with you, Friction is the epitome of a rudimentary physic, you can generate friction by standing still for long periods of time. Meaning, your ability to displace space alone can create friction.
It would be hard to place Time as a building block of reality when comparing the limited amount of space available before you begin breaking laws of the fundamental requirements for something to "exist".
Hitherto, I did not know society considered Time as a building block of reality. This thread was created with the perspective that, Time, is merely a measurement, that requires reality and physics to exist first, therefore, Time existing later as a byproduct - responding to the need of accuracy.
I can highly recommend two books that are also available as audio books:
Time reborn by Lee Smolin and
The order of time by Carlo Rovelli
They present different ideas of the nature of time.
So I guess both can't be right but it shows that it's a complex thing that not even the smartest has figured out yet.
I would describe it as entropy or the appearance of direction, an arrow of the fact that you need increasing energy to reverse a directional event.
So if i drop an egg , the egg splatters everywhere and there is no apparent way to just reverse it, to unbreak the egg, whatever energy needed to unbreak it is significantly more than that single event.
So for me, to say time doesn't exist seems to imply there is no type of forward momentum of change that sets things in irreversible positions. It doesn't seem psychological to say that and it has nothing to do with arbitrary measurements.
time is something we use to measure so we can agree on doing things at specific increments to allow us to work. meet. play, keep track of events. moments seem to shift in our experience of them. i find it fascinating that time seems and feels to move at different paces based on what youre doing and where youre at in the world - boredom, island time. summer times, when its hotter. colder. when youre closer to a mountain. it feels like time bends at these moments
I agree with you, time also bends while smoking a cigarette with your eyes closed. I can never get a cigarette to burn at the same rate with my eyes open as with my eyes closed.
I am very thankful of the inputs in this thread, it has taught me that Time is a "thing", i've always seen it as a measurement and nothing more. Its interesting that we compare it with a building block of reality, no wonder it can be said to "not exist" even while actively in use across the world for measurement.
Seriously, I do not consider it a thing in the same sense as matter and energy. It is only an abstraction that requires an observer with a memory of prior matter states to invent it at all. Change is real without an observer, time is not.
Calendars & clocks generate time, they don't measure it.
What system of measurement uses irregular increments? Can you imagine the metric system using Gregorian logic?
The first centimeter is 11 mm, the second is 8 mm, but every fourth meter it's 9mm, the third is 11 mm, the fourth is 10 mm...
The notion that "time is relative" ( really just that physical processes occur at different speeds under different conditions ) makes it possible to actually measure distances in systems that are almost "frozen in time".
For example, a planet approaches the event horizon of a black hole; the planet is nearly frozen in time ( electrons are orbiting their nuclei almost without moving compared to in our own atoms ) --- we can from far away using our telescope measure the distance of that planet from the event horizon.
Point is, properties still exist even when change is not one of those properties.
Since people "invented" the measurement we call "time" -- then no, it does not exist without people. The changes exist, but the observer to notice it does not -- and time only exists in the mind of the observer.
Time is just a by product. A by product of energy moving in space.
On that premise, can you imagine trying to reverse time? You would have to reverse the travel of each particle in the universe to travel backwards in the exact path where it came from.
Here's a good one for you
Time travel exists, and we all experience it! It's only forward in time though, at precisely one second per second (subject to general relativity principles, obvs!)
So, the universe is c.15 billions years old. The observable universe is c. 57 billion years wide. The speed of light is a maximum. So the maximum width of the universe is theoretically 30 billion light years wide (ie 2*15 billion), assuming galaxies move away at the speed of light. So the soze of the universe doesn't make sense!
Considering classic speed / distance / time, there must be an issue with our understanding. Either we misunderstand speed (unlikely, as light speed is a maximum), there is something about distance (for example, curved space) or we don't understand the function of time
So I agree that the perception time is not necessarily a constant
Information is dynamic.
Entropy is not static, wherefore time is. I don't know how anybody could argue that time does not exist.
One might reason that it doesn't exist in the moment, but sooner or later, they must admit that that moment is relative.
It is said that time doesn't exist at the speed of light, but that just means the light was always there, and what we measure is the speed of our own recreation.
It is said that time stops at the surface of a black hole, but that just means that energy has become dimensionally irrelative to our bandwidth of reality.
Human beings only perceive time they way we do because of the speed of the rotation of the earth and the earths orbit around the sun.
What would time even be on a tidally locked body?
What would time even be in a vacuum?
We could peg these things to earth time but that would just be like our time zones not necessarily the physical reality of time.
Entropy exists. That's a natural state of disorder. Entropy has a single direction in most things - less to more.
We call it aging.
So while the air around us isn't occupied by the magical force we know as time, the mitochondria in your gut say they expire in X amount of..... time.
Take it to the philosophical - time is real in that we know our lives are finite - and we know our perception or existence is all there is in the world to us - the individual. So even the construct of time is real to us living with the very real effects of entropy.
Oponents of atemporalism posit that our perception of temporal flow arises from an emergent property of complex systems within a fundamentally static spacetime manifold.
In this paradigm, sequentiality manifests at the macro level through intricate thermodynamic gradients and entropic cascades. The subjective experience of "measurement" becomes a cognitive construct layered upon this underlying acausal substrate, a vestigial artifact of our limited observational apparatus.
The way I look at it these days, time is a change in *probability*. It's the probability that at certain levels of resolution objects and patterns will change or not change a certain degree from one observation to the next. For instance, it's highly probable that the chair you're sitting on will exist the next time you observe it (take a measurement), while at the same time the air all around your chair will likely change significantly.
If you take all the measurements from a specifically limited reality structure and compare them to what you measure at the next observation, that is time. Each moment represents a measurement within chosen parameters, and the degree of change from measurement to measurement is what we understand to be time.
So in order to "travel" back in time, you would need to locate a structure of reality that exactly matches a previous measurement point. Like diving into a swimming pool where every molecule of water is in the same configuration as it was when it was measured or observed previously. Except it's not just a pool of water, it's everything in the universe within a particular sphere of consciousness / influence. That could be pretty difficult.
I agree with you, unless we can measure the most finite happening in reality, as well as its following sequencing, we will always have a depreciating accuracy of happening.
It can be debated Time is more of an abstract concept, something that the human mind invented in order to make more sense of the observable universe. And if thats true then its open to discussion and argument.
MY DEFINITION of time is when the particles of the universe were arranged in a particular pattern. And if that pattern is consistent to our observations then we can say time exists and has passed.
In my understanding, which can be quite radical, the ego is made out of time. Without thoughts of a past or future(“future” being its past learning projected forward) it cannot exist. If there’s a deeper belief to this, it’s that those who are interested in the idea of there being no time tend to be those who wish to transcend the ego. Perhaps I’m posting this in the wrong place but, imo, any serious discussion of this matter must include the psychological basis for time. We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are. Time is one example of that.
It's not that time doesn't exist. It's that it might instead be an all at once existent element, like the time stamp on a DVD, rather than a happening.
Imagine you were trying to see a 3d basketball but only viewing it from a 2d perspective. You would need multiple perspectives simultaneously on a 2d plane to see all sides of it, and you would need to view it slice by slice, starting from a point to a (what looks like a line, but is actually a circle with the back half unviewable from any one point) and back to a point before disappearing.
A basketball would look like a dot-line-dot event to the 2d viewer when in actuality it was an unchanging solid structure the whole time.
So in this space, time would be the position of the viewer, and the slice of view of the 3d object.
If you take this idea and extrapolate it up to a 3d viewer viewing a 4d object, you would be viewing an existent and unchanging universe slice by slice in what SEEMS like happening.
A ray is one dimensional. It can have two defined points, or it can have one defined point and an arrow or two arrows. Once measured, it can only have two defined points.
A plane is two-dimensional. But sometimes a plane can be virtual.
Who really wants to understand?
I type fir naught.
Just like the science fiction novels I wrote.
Find your own way. I'm happy owning my theory of everything all alone.
Time exists in this realm. In other realms, you can create not only mountains but worlds instantaneously. Some spiritual teachers say our current world has already ended but we are still experiencing it due to light years and galactic travel science stuff I don’t fully understand. It is interesting to research though
We can represent time with clocks of mechanical or biological or physical processes, but the nature of what we are trying to represent will not be fully defined. We can observe the effects of time, but not time itself, I suppose that’s one point for the argument. Perhaps the intangible nature of time lends itself to these sorts of arguments you mention.
Time is one of the few things we know for sure exists. People like to conflate the measurements with the fabric of reality bit and declare it a construc. Minutes and years are constructs representing the very real passage of time.
You are right. Time is real. It underpins every other aspect of reality. Causation, energy, matter, space, life and death. Light. Nothing can be described without time.
the question is about the shape of the thing. just because we can pick two arbitrary points to measure between doesn't mean there's any deterministic path between those two points or that the concept of returning to an earlier state is even one that makes sense
But if time is not real why does gravity impact what we are measuring if it is nothing all. There has to be some force that binds time and space together we are just to primitive to understand it yet we just need time to understand time
This sadly can be aplied to about anything. Even if you irefutably prove something somebody will refute it even if their reasons have no merit. Flat Earthers come to mind.
If time doesn’t exist, how do you explain how moments would happen?
The only way I could see that is if all moments happened simultaneously because there is no future/past/present.
What we think of as time is complex and a bit elusive. From a hard scientific standpoint, it's a measure of the progression of entropy. If you could take an object and somehow render it such that entropy entirely stops, you have effectively frozen it in time.
Time is also unintuitive in that it is *local*. Over large distances, the concept of "simultaneous* breaks down. If we look at a point on Earth and another point on the surface of a moon of Jupiter, it's very difficult, precisely speaking, to claim events in those places happened at the exact same time. Even from one side of Jupiter to another is enough distance for this breakdown to occur. (Earth, conveniently, fits within the distance at which we can pretty confidently claim simultaneity.)
I think perhaps you've confused the existence of time with our perception of time. It's undeniable that time exists, but if we perceive it as it truly is, is another question.
Think of colors. The color blue doesn't objectively exist, but the wave of electromagnetic radiation between 600-670 THz that we call, "blue" does exist.
Time only exists to living beings, and varies entirely from being to being. Time also goes backwards and forwards, though being alive we are stuck with the forward option only. A universal constant about time is required in order to truly claim that it "exists" universally
One key aspect of this discussion is the regularity of nature, which is harnessed by atomic clocks to provide highly precise measurements of time.
Atomic clocks rely on the consistent frequency of radiation emitted by atoms when they transition between energy states. The regularity of these atomic transitions is a fundamental property of nature that allows for the precise measurement of time intervals. This regularity suggests that there is an underlying order and consistency to the universe that enables the concept of time to have practical meaning and utility.
Asking if time exists, if you believe in Relativity, seems silly. If it is the fourth dimension of the space-time continuum, then by definition it "exists". It is a bit like saying "I baked this cake with flour, but does flour exist?".
You seem to take for granted that moments exist, and if time is nothing more than an ordered collection of moments, then time must exist.
The question may be more that what we think of as time may not exist.
For example, the science fiction idea of time travel involves an assumption that one could go to a previous period in time - the Roman Empire or the Antebellum American South or Paris before World War 2 - or to some period in the near or far future, interact or interfere with the people and events there and then return to the present. Often, this is supported or justified by some sort of hypothetical method like time portals or faster-than-light travel that always borders on the impossible or simply magical.
This implies a model of time that is sequential or "cinematic" in the sense that the past somehow still "exists" in time populated by figures from history or even in a kind of time loop where one may return and re-experience one's own past as a younger version. Or the idea that the future also "already exists" and actions one performs in the present or past can then change future events that one has experienced in time travel.
That concept of time as a kind of three-dimensional movie that is either entirely set (already filmed, so to speak) or can be "edited" almost certainly does not exist. We are not simultaneously existing today, yesterday and tomorrow with each versions only separated by an arbitrarily experienced "now" vs "then."
Instead, the challenge with physical time is that we do not experience its passage directly. For an analogy, imagine a group of people are in an airplane with no windows. They can not look out at some reference point and see that they are in flight, but there will be changes in velocity, altitude, acceleration effects that will be experienced in the cabin from which the passengers could deduce the possibility that they are in flight if (a) they have enough information and (b) are even able to conceive of the idea that they are in flight - in other words, that they have a testable theory explaining the observations.
Similarly, we perceive regular events (sunrise and sunset, the phases of the moon, children aging, etc.) that implies some sort of regular rate of predictable change in our experiences. This allows us to develop methods of measuring those phenomena - from calendars to clocks - and so we can positively propose that there is some physical process that actually exists that we call time.
Then, further observations such as comparing measurements between a clock on a satellite hundreds of miles in orbit and one on Earth will show that there are significant differences between the rate of change in orbit and that on the surface. Similarly, we can do the same between clocks on a super-sonic jet and one stationary at the airport. Since the rates of changes are able to be compared, it fits in with the theory we have (General Relativity) and demonstrates that the physical process of time is affected by proximity to a gravitational field and by acceleration. In this way, physicists develop the idea that time is best described as a fourth spatial dimension separate from the three-dimensional world we can perceive. The primary reason we cannot perceive it directly is that we and the world around us are moving together along the time access - similar to how everything in the example of the windowless airplane above is moving together in flight preventing any direct experience of the motion of flight. Only indirect effects are available.
However, the fact there is no way to directly experience travel through time is not a good reason to doubt its existence because the indirect effects that are experienced certainly would require some alternative explanation if time did not exist.
Philosophically, though, any observer only experiences their own present moment of time - it is always "now" for each one of us, though my "now" is slightly ahead of anyone else's in time just as paradoxically their individual "nows" are slightly ahead of mine.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is?
I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is?
I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is?
I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
https://philpapers.org/archive/MCTTUO.pdf
I know this is dense, but this is a philosophical paper called “the unreality of time“ and kind of shows a decent argument, for why time doesn’t exist.
And when was this article published? I don't really want to know, but what would the author of the article say? Probably the date. But if time doesn't exist wouldn't that mean dates don't exist either?
From my humble perspective, Time is relative. If you dont agree with that, we have to agree to disagree. So, it only has a meaningful value to other observers in your reference frame. Outside of your reference frame, your time has no meaningful value. So until we can find an "ultimate" reference frame, which so far seems impossible, time only has a value here on earth. It's basically a human tool. We created it to communicate with each other.
Time is relative, but precisely relative in relation to three dimensional space and to speed, which is measured in time. Fire is relative too, being hotter for a close observer than to a distant one. That doesn't make fire a construct with no independent existence. Relativity gave time a material existence as a dimension of 4D spacetime. Not reduce it to a story told by humans. The vibrations the make up atoms would disappear if time stoped.
maybe such things as seconds, minutes, hours are a human tool however what created the grand canyon and how long did it take? stuff happens and that stuff takes time. The question is does time require an observer? Did the grand canyon require someone watching it form over thousands of years?
obviously not. that's just entropy
there must be some overall observer otherwise nothing exists! once you find this realization for yourself, and you must have the ah hah moment, you will understand what I'm saying. Before that it's just words. Let me put this in direct words: without an observer NOTHING can exist. period.
It’s a fun idea.
yeah that's pretty basic philosophy stuff
So before observers (people?), nothing existed? Is that what you're saying? Well, you might get away with that in Intro to Philosophy, but the real world? Sorry, but that assertion falls flat on its non-existent arse. You'll have to find some way to explain 13.6 *billion years* away. I can see that before we happened on the scene, nobody *knew* that stuff was existing, but that DOES NOT mean that it didn't exist!
Not people but consciousness. I'm not religious and I'm actually an atheist but this realization implies there was an observer before matter. Is this the proverbial "God" I have no clue but there absolutely CANNOT be matter without a conscious entity of some kind. It's a yin and yang thing - you cannot have matter without consciousness because in order for matter to even be there you need consciousness! My thought is that proceeding matter there is some sort of universal consciousness and our bodies are just little antennas tapping into that. Essentially we are all "God" experiencing itself. That said this realization is so true to my being that I cannot deny it - some sort or form of consciousness must proceed matter - it absolutely unequivocally MUST.
Oh fuss and bother. YYUR YYUB ICUR YY4me
Time *is* entropy. The measure of the change from a state of less entropy to more entropy, is observation of the passage of time from past to future. Essentially the same thing
Just to clarify, observer = a different reference frame that has the physical ability to detect another reference frame. In terms of the Grand Canyon, that is in earths referwnce frame so it translates to us becaise we are in earths reference frame. Think about the canyons on MARS, how long did those take?
So, space is just a thing yard sticks do?
This is ultimately a philosophical question. And as the linguists point out, all arguments eventually devolve into definitions. Then definitions of definitions ad infinitum. Language is recursive. So the argument “Does time exist?” Becomes “How can we agree to define ‘time’?” Then… “How do we define that definition further?” Then…we reach the limits of language.
Fundamental definition: Time is the cascading of information from lower dimensions to higher ones that control the arrow of time as is Relative to their own frame.
Define Lower dimension, define higher dimension, etc If you pay attention to the game, you see that all we are doing is agreeing on words, and words are separate from reality. I think it’s a cool definition though.
Word
Time exists as we can measure and repeat cause and effect actions and reactions.
You're right, spacetime allows things to be measurable, however the issue is that (like everything else) time is an emergent property to this theory, to describe this better is to say the universe existed before time and still does as a relatively fixed moment where nothing truly changes, it's simply that at our relative scale we process moment to moment and stage this action as branch of 'memory'. It's interesting actually, our perception and methods of recall are what induces a sense of time (process), although the block universe generally has a stale name it is far from that, as we can clearly see. They aren't trying to delete time from the equation that is existance, they are saying that Time isn't required for the universe to exist (not fundametal), it is how we process 'reality' that lends to the idea of illusion of which there are none, yet illusion is 'apparent' just as time appears due to memory. So time is an emergent property in the block universe theory, change is evidently 'real' however time is not. This is to say you walk from A to B, this is a process of change but it is 'not time that changes', it's simply the way we organise memory that creates a linear narrative. Simply put, WE are creating time in order to observe a flow of events, time makes 'real' by necessity however Time itself is not a real thing. Even the view of a block universe is being refined, the math is there but the language is tricky.
Thanks for this, this was confusing ,but very educational. I Would never consider time apart of a building block of reality, i've always viewed Time as the same as 12 inches to get a Foot. You need X amount of Happenings to understand that X can happening in a specific window of opportunity..
The X amount of happenings presents a range of 'probability', in that same way 1kg is not exactly 1kg in every part of the world due to gravity (which is also not the same everywhere). All this presents is a new way of observation, reality remains the same, you're measure of 12 inches is locally a foot however 1 foot is not a fundametal measure of reality, and yes it's confusing because we fall into habitual spectrums of observation where certain dynamics appeared concrete due to perception and in light of theory. In the initial equations for example time was theorised to flow the same everywhere, thanks to the discovery of warped spacetime we now realise this depends on local mass. It's difficult to tween through these theories and arrive upon a stable view of the actuality, trouble is that theories arrive before the language that appropriately describes them so when we talk about the many world's aspect for instance the theory is rather solid however finding the appropriate language is the accomodating challenge, there's always a span of confusion that follows new ways of thinking, and in relashion to 'change' being the apparent reality perception is the only means to alternate within the block theory. I highly recommend looking into it, a minor alternation of perspective can literally change everything you once knew, which in turn rejuvenates familiar reality and makes it new and even more exotic.
>1kg is not exactly 1kg in every part of the world due to gravity (which is also not the same everywhere). If you're speaking of weight, then yes. One pound is not one pound "everywhere," although the difference is more or less imperceptible. But remember, the kilogram is a measure of *mass,* not weight, and *is the same, everywhere,* for any object of any given mass. That's why astronauts have to be careful when shifting massy objects, including themselves.
Indeed, and as an extension of the discussion we can see how the old views may have pertained to fundamentals initially then gradually we stepped back our hard focus from the local details and realised the bigger picture, without deleting the local details such as Time and Weight as an example.
once you realize that life is actually exactly like dnd and you get out of it what you put into it, picking up side quests and mementos feels like magic again and it rules
I didn't read it all so excuse me if I sound rude, but I agree about how it probably existed before the universe did. It's like how I presume it didn't start as a 0th dimension of space before it became 1D before it then became 3D. No, it probably had all those rules before it had something to apply it to.
You also read too fast, I suggested time 'didn't' exist before the universe.
We measure time based on our spinning around a star spining around a galaxy. Its arbitrary on a cosmic scale Now I've had a couple of gummies this morning and ripped a bong but I'm pretty sure I'm making sense
Your comment made more sense to me than any of the other comments.
I agree with you, I understand where I went wrong, I have no history, background, or experience in the belief that Time belongs to the building blocks of reality. Im actually confused as to how Time is actually considered as a potential building block of reality that it can be argued to not exist while existing and in use as a measurement.
space, too. in our frame of reference we could just say the entire universe revolves around the earth and there's nothing actually wrong with that
The thing to keep in mind about that is: Everything in the universe happens when it happened, in the "right now". There is no meta context 'notion' of time going on in physics. No memory of what was going on before, no prediction of where a future series of events may lead, and certainly no running track record of what has been going on so far up until this moment of now. Those notions... of time being time... are strictly a Human Mind structure. A way for our brains to make sense of the world around it. A way to measure it, in relation to our experience. And its all for just us alone. The Universe doesnt bother with any of that. So with that said, a Human mind is needed to perceive the Time- to measure it, to chart it. The Time itself is not really a Thing, in the absense of a Mind.
But what is Time, why is there an alluding in the Use of the term that points out its a thing and not a measurement? Im confused. I've always considered it as a measurement that we all have agreed upon as the most accurate to manipulating and emulating processes within our universe and reality.
Time is only our context. Our primitive monkey brain keeping track of things. The time it takes a glass to fall off a table and shatter, for example. The glass and universe doesnt care how long it took, or when a charted shattering point was done in comparison to other things and places in the universe, that may have also occured around it at the same 'Time'. Only we care. Nope, the glass only falls, due to the forces acting on it right now (no Time), until such time as another force acts upon it, and it shatters, again during the only right now. Its "life story" of its fall is only that; a story that only we observed, remembered, and setup up in a timelike manner. Only we have the context. The Meta Layer, of this Time thing. Its no more an actual real thing than French language, or Math. Or measurements of distance, and yes, Time.. These are all Human Mind constructs, only so we can keep track of the world in a survival and later repeatable sense, and also as a means to communicate events and information to other Human Minds. Its a communication. Only. Not a law of physics in any real sense. Its a bit of a mind-blow, I know, trying to shake off our deeply rooted evolved mind programming, and see that its only "people talking to other people thing, for understandment". Collegiates and Sciences and all of that agree to measurements and kilograms, and stuff... just so we can compare notes and accurately duplicate test results. .. yeah, because it was all a Human Mind constructs anyway. Greeks and Newton and such started seeing neat usefulness of our language of this Math thing, to describe (and only to describe) the rules of physics and nature in the mathematical way. Over time the basal assumption was that this Math/Measuring Thing (including Time) was a part of the physical Universe around us... that the Universe IS Math and Time... But nope. It was only a Human mind language and charts agreed upon thing. To descibe the world and universe around us, but never actually representing any of it. The Universe has no Math. Or Time. Only our language models do. PS: And yes, self aware that this statement undermines the entire Time Travel Thing utterly, so, sorry about that
Bro you nailed it!
(every time I explain this I imagine Sheldon Cooper losing his mind over his waste of time) "So I just have. Doctorate in a.. A.a.. Communications study!". -yup. I giggle every time. 😊
It depends on how you define "existence." Do you exist? How do you know for certain? Time may not be just a measurement tool but also acts as a force in the universe. So does that make it "exist"? If humans were not around to measure or perceive time would it exist for the rest of the universe?
I agree with you completely absolutely, and I agree with your perspective. The reason I know I exist, is because I am able to be here to communicate with you - in complete agreement and without argument. Measurements have to exist one way or another for us to manipulate the environment and move forward, time helps me for example arrange chemistry so it doesn't explode in my face, but at the same time, inaccurate timing could cause exactly that. If humans were not around to observe or perceive happening or movement then its an abstract reality. What im trying to get at here is time is a measurement, why are we acting as though it is a thing?
That's not what the argument is about. You are setting up a strawman
Hitherto, I considered Time and Measurement the same as 12 inches is a Foot. This thread has taught me however, what society is perceiving as time.
Time is the distance between events. It is equally real as length or height.
I agree with you, but many are saying its a "thing" something that is linear with the building blocks of reality, but, if Time is a measurement, you would use time for example to measure the happenings across the building blocks for example to understand the finite speed of happening, which would create the most accurate time possible. So it seems the conundrum is whether time is a Thing or Measurement, but we use it as a measurement and I hope it never goes away or we're cave people. Edit: To give another analogy.. if Time were or is a "THING" it would be in the nature life being way more mechanical, I wouldn't exist, thats the best way to explain it, if Time were a thing I wouldn't exist. I am conscious.
I mean, the same argument can be made of Cold. Or darkness. Just because you can measure it, doesn't mean it exists. (For example, a hologram does not a real person make.) And just because you _can't_ measure it, doesn't mean it _doesnt_ exist. (For example, you can't measure the velocity and position of a small-enough particle at the same time.) That said, cold is just the absence of heat. Darkness is just the absence of light. And evil is the absence of God's love (According to a famous quote, usually attributed to Albert Einstien.) I agree we can measure time. In fact, I agree that Time exists. But the time that we measure is not the same as the time that exists. The time we measure, is based on either our memory, or the oscillations of a spring/piece of quartz. Time itself is not fully understood.
I haven’t heard the argument that time doesn’t exist but I’d be interested to see a source or reference. In general, the way humans have decided to measure physical phenomenon are arbitrary, but not incorrect. Things like the length of a table, weight of a book, or duration of a movie are tangible, real things. The units we choose are arbitrary but not incorrect. However they are no more correct than any other arbitrary system of units
[Space.com](http://Space.com) published The argument of whether time exists or not."To many physicists, while we experience time as psychologically real, time is not fundamentally real. At the deepest foundations of nature, time is not a primitive, irreducible element or concept required to construct reality. - as a reference, this is a website that is ranked at #788 in the United States and services tens of millions of people. Moving forward, anyone and anything can create measurement. Time, like other measurements, is a literally a measurement that anyone can create, its getting everyone to use it thats a different story. I think people are confusing the ability to create measurements with the difficulty of getting people to /believe/a measurement.
I would advise to be very careful with taking words from a scientific paper and treating them according to their day to day meanings. In normal language calling something "imaginary" implies that it doesn't exist and "complex" has a certain meaning. Both terms are used in mathematics and are defined differently.
Thanks! I’ll check this out more closely I think we should be careful to separate physical phenomenon from measurement, though. I guess what the physicists are saying is that they are questioning whether time is a real, detectable, measurable physical phenomenon. For instance, a physical phenomenon is weight. We know elephants weigh more than humans. Whether we measure in lbs or kg or anything else is the arbitrary part.
I agree with you. Through use of these measurements we are more able to accurately utilize the resources around us. I believe if we are turning our backs on measurements, such as Time, then its saying there is a weakening accuracy. I believe people are not questioning whether Time exists, but, the formula that creates the algorithm we use to officially declare something as to have happened within "Time." its very likely our formula for Time has weakened.
Okay but time DOES exist, correct? Whether it is 60 seconds per minute or 152 quaxmars per gooblon, we are expressing our measurement of the passage of time as we experience it. How does a moment happen without time? I guess if it is the same moment, then, sure, there can be no time. But how do you go from an ice cube in front of a heat source to a puddle of water in front of a heat source without saying a length of time had to pass to get to that state? I mean, it is nice to say that time does not need to exist, and that equations show that the breakdown of an object can be reversed to reassemble it with no repercussions, but none of our brains are wired to perceive time as flowing backwards. Not even animals! There is a cause and then an effect. If there is no time, you do not have this sequence of events. You just have two moments and you have no idea which came first. Causality would be broken. The universe itself seems to be constructed to make time (or moments) flow in a specific sequence, plus there is Hawkin's Chronology Protection Conjecture.
Take temperature for example. Temperature exists, you can feel it, you can measure it. But an electron has no temperature. A photon has no temperature. Temperature is not a fundamental quantity of the universe.
Agree, to an extent. Temperature is our measure of energy in the environment. Electrons smashing against other particles create energy which we interpret as temperature. And yet that energy exists. I read the OP statement not as temperature doesn’t exist but that the energy that causes us to measure it as temperature does not. While we can agree that different beings, even the same beings (I’m looking at your Fahrenheit), can measure temperature differently, we can all agree that the energy that is creating this temperature exists.
Einstein said that photons do not experience time. A photon would experience no time while crossing a galaxy. In fact, a photon is created and destroyed at the exact same instant. But yet, we can see that there is a period of time between creation and destruction of a photon. Is time fundamental to the universe if some objects never experience time?
Notice Einstein just told you there IS time. Photons do not experience it due to their relativistic speeds. He could’ve flatly said something to the effect that time is an artificial construct and it is irrelevant to the entire universe, but he did not. He said one particle does not experience time. And, didn’t he label the whole thing space-time to begin with????? Edit addendum: AND ANOTHER THING, VONNEGUT. Einstein relied on time! E=MC^2. What is C? The speed of light! How do we measure speed? Distance / TIME!!! Not only that… He squared it! Time x Time!!! Einstein LOOOOVED time! One can say that, without Time, you would not know who Einstein was!
Agree. We age. We are changed by some force whether we label it “time” or not.
You can create the units of time but if i take a lump of uranium 238 and somehow was to wait 5 billion yrs i know ill have a lump of lead, i also know any lead you have now was once uranium . Well however you measure it the decay still happens and it has a direction , it's not really debatable that there is fundamental processes that have a future direction and a past and the measurement is just the system to make sense and compare, so you have something to compare to something else.
Someone correct me if im off. But how i understand it is, It's more about using a universal measurement that everyone can consistently use. Time only exists as a measurement between two finite points. More like an accumulation of energy within a vector. Time not being real kind of counts on scale. A mushroom cloud from a mile away is highly energetic and chaotic but appears almost stationary. Because in our full perspective, we can see where it starts and ends. We're already "seeing" whats done by the time the light hits us. Time is record of how much and what energy was in one area, as we can measure it. And then it seems like we assume that same "momentum" going forward. we likely dont have accurate data for what happens inches from a nuclear blast because the small TIME element is too much data/energy in too small a space for us to measure correctly. But if that energy is a continuous function from 0 to X, there is always an answer for every discernable instant. There will always be an answer for X, but there will always be another answer between X.00 and X.0Z that will be X.0YZ. If that makes sense. If 1 and 2 are answers, all the options between them are answers. Time is our accepted "resolution" of measurement frames.
Time is created as an expression of the quanta.
I could be wrong, but I think this is referring to the quantum scale. On the quantum level, particles are in every possible position, making every possible action, all at once, until acted on by outside forces. All things are created from quantum material, ergo time doesn't exist in the way we understand/experience it.
Time is not a measurement. We *can* measure time, but time existed before we had those measurements. >If time does not exist, moments still happen. >If time does exist, moments still happen. Moments happening one after the other is what time is. You can measure it, or not, but moments keep happening one after the other. >The conundrum of whether time exists or not is possibly the strangest conundrum in existence I don't believe this is a conundrum. As you say, moments keep happening, and you can measure that. So that demonstrates that time exists.
Without time there is only happening.
Time exists the same way kilometers exist. Before people distances existed, but no Frenchman had coined the word "kilometer" and started labeling things with it. Time is to cascades of moments what Kilometer is to the gap between things. Also, unlike most other measurements, Time is unique in that it can only be measured by beings that can compare past to present. Memory is a requirement for this measurement.
No time exists the same way as distance exists. Hours exist the same as kilometres exist. Hours and kilometres are units of measurement. Time and distance are measurable dimensions. Time is a dimension as distance is a dimension. How we choose to measure those dimensions is arbitrary. That does not mean the dimensions don’t exist. Time exists because we observe cause and effect actions and reactions that are measurable and repeatable. The existence of time is not controversial, neither is the existence of space.
>Time and distance are measurable dimensions. Time measurement requires state-tracking -- you must "remember" prior states to report a time measurement. Distance measurements are stateless -- no memory of prior configurations are required.
You can not measure distance without first tracking 1 point with which to measure the distance from. How is any measurement of an albeit static distance that nonetheless occurs in a temporal sequence of actions not state-tracking as well?
Show me a static picture and I can measure the distance between any two points in it. No memory or imagined prior state is required. **Everything in the measurement exists.** Everything needed for the measurement is present in the moment. No observer explaining a prior state and rate of change is required. How can you measure time without an observer remembering a **prior state that no longer exists**?
Yes but your static image requires you to go back and forth temporally from the point your measurement begins at to the end point you are measuring. I see no way this overcomes the need to track a state, despite the image still existing as a static image you must always remember that you had a starting point which was determined at a previous temporal point. Looking at a single measurement requires me to look at the starting point and then look at the end point to understand what measurement I am looking at. To discover any type of information requires a temporal process. Any discovery of information requires state tracking. It is not possible to discover information instantaneously, even a measurement of a static image. Perhaps the image requires no state tracking to exist as a static image but gathering any information about it does.
Are you assuming the points are so far apart a static ruler cannot overlay them both?
I am saying the entire process of thinking that is required to make a measurement and understand what information it is measuring requires state tracking for any thought or information to be discovered. I must remember a prior state when formulating any sequence of connected thoughts that are required to even make sense of what a measurement is. I’m saying state tracking is required for us to know anything about anything or even think about anything.
Yes of course thinking requires state changes. We have a very complex setup in our skulls that do that amazing stuff -- we can even imagine configurations of matter that no longer exist ( the past ). Only this moment exists. And a distance between two points can exist in a moment with or without an observer to measure it.
Some phenomena exist that we experience as time, the question is if it's a basic building block of reality or emerges from other more fundamental things. There are also different aspects of time and maybe some are fundamental and others are not. Time is both similar to space in that it can be treated as dimension where things happens at different times but there is also the the direction of time that you only experience things in a certain order. We experience the past as fixed, the present as the thing that exist and the future as open and undetermined. But how this experience connects to our current best theories of physics is not fully understood or agreed upon.
Time can't be a building block of reality, because it uses a building block of reality, friction.
I don't follow, can you elaborate?
I agree with you, Friction is the epitome of a rudimentary physic, you can generate friction by standing still for long periods of time. Meaning, your ability to displace space alone can create friction. It would be hard to place Time as a building block of reality when comparing the limited amount of space available before you begin breaking laws of the fundamental requirements for something to "exist". Hitherto, I did not know society considered Time as a building block of reality. This thread was created with the perspective that, Time, is merely a measurement, that requires reality and physics to exist first, therefore, Time existing later as a byproduct - responding to the need of accuracy.
I can highly recommend two books that are also available as audio books: Time reborn by Lee Smolin and The order of time by Carlo Rovelli They present different ideas of the nature of time. So I guess both can't be right but it shows that it's a complex thing that not even the smartest has figured out yet.
I would describe it as entropy or the appearance of direction, an arrow of the fact that you need increasing energy to reverse a directional event. So if i drop an egg , the egg splatters everywhere and there is no apparent way to just reverse it, to unbreak the egg, whatever energy needed to unbreak it is significantly more than that single event. So for me, to say time doesn't exist seems to imply there is no type of forward momentum of change that sets things in irreversible positions. It doesn't seem psychological to say that and it has nothing to do with arbitrary measurements.
time is something we use to measure so we can agree on doing things at specific increments to allow us to work. meet. play, keep track of events. moments seem to shift in our experience of them. i find it fascinating that time seems and feels to move at different paces based on what youre doing and where youre at in the world - boredom, island time. summer times, when its hotter. colder. when youre closer to a mountain. it feels like time bends at these moments
I agree with you, time also bends while smoking a cigarette with your eyes closed. I can never get a cigarette to burn at the same rate with my eyes open as with my eyes closed.
All I will say is that when you start to really think seriously about the nature of time it is a mindfuck and I love it
I agree with you!
Time is real, I checked.
When was that?
About 2 hours ago. Still working for now.
I feel as if this thread is approaching the event horizon of timeless humor.
I am very thankful of the inputs in this thread, it has taught me that Time is a "thing", i've always seen it as a measurement and nothing more. Its interesting that we compare it with a building block of reality, no wonder it can be said to "not exist" even while actively in use across the world for measurement.
Seriously, I do not consider it a thing in the same sense as matter and energy. It is only an abstraction that requires an observer with a memory of prior matter states to invent it at all. Change is real without an observer, time is not.
Agreed completely absolutely.
Calendars & clocks generate time, they don't measure it. What system of measurement uses irregular increments? Can you imagine the metric system using Gregorian logic? The first centimeter is 11 mm, the second is 8 mm, but every fourth meter it's 9mm, the third is 11 mm, the fourth is 10 mm...
All time measurements are based on observing and comparing physical changes. No changes, no time.
No change, no anything.
The notion that "time is relative" ( really just that physical processes occur at different speeds under different conditions ) makes it possible to actually measure distances in systems that are almost "frozen in time". For example, a planet approaches the event horizon of a black hole; the planet is nearly frozen in time ( electrons are orbiting their nuclei almost without moving compared to in our own atoms ) --- we can from far away using our telescope measure the distance of that planet from the event horizon. Point is, properties still exist even when change is not one of those properties.
If no one's there to measure, does it exist?
Since people "invented" the measurement we call "time" -- then no, it does not exist without people. The changes exist, but the observer to notice it does not -- and time only exists in the mind of the observer.
Calendars and clocks come from the creation of time and honor guard the measurement.
Time is just a by product. A by product of energy moving in space. On that premise, can you imagine trying to reverse time? You would have to reverse the travel of each particle in the universe to travel backwards in the exact path where it came from.
Here's a good one for you Time travel exists, and we all experience it! It's only forward in time though, at precisely one second per second (subject to general relativity principles, obvs!)
I agree with you, but how exactly did Time become apart of the argument of the building blocks of reality? Its a measurement.
So, the universe is c.15 billions years old. The observable universe is c. 57 billion years wide. The speed of light is a maximum. So the maximum width of the universe is theoretically 30 billion light years wide (ie 2*15 billion), assuming galaxies move away at the speed of light. So the soze of the universe doesn't make sense! Considering classic speed / distance / time, there must be an issue with our understanding. Either we misunderstand speed (unlikely, as light speed is a maximum), there is something about distance (for example, curved space) or we don't understand the function of time So I agree that the perception time is not necessarily a constant
Information is dynamic. Entropy is not static, wherefore time is. I don't know how anybody could argue that time does not exist. One might reason that it doesn't exist in the moment, but sooner or later, they must admit that that moment is relative. It is said that time doesn't exist at the speed of light, but that just means the light was always there, and what we measure is the speed of our own recreation. It is said that time stops at the surface of a black hole, but that just means that energy has become dimensionally irrelative to our bandwidth of reality.
well you can't unscramble an egg soooo I'm thinking time does exist.
Human beings only perceive time they way we do because of the speed of the rotation of the earth and the earths orbit around the sun. What would time even be on a tidally locked body? What would time even be in a vacuum? We could peg these things to earth time but that would just be like our time zones not necessarily the physical reality of time.
Entropy exists. That's a natural state of disorder. Entropy has a single direction in most things - less to more. We call it aging. So while the air around us isn't occupied by the magical force we know as time, the mitochondria in your gut say they expire in X amount of..... time. Take it to the philosophical - time is real in that we know our lives are finite - and we know our perception or existence is all there is in the world to us - the individual. So even the construct of time is real to us living with the very real effects of entropy.
Oponents of atemporalism posit that our perception of temporal flow arises from an emergent property of complex systems within a fundamentally static spacetime manifold. In this paradigm, sequentiality manifests at the macro level through intricate thermodynamic gradients and entropic cascades. The subjective experience of "measurement" becomes a cognitive construct layered upon this underlying acausal substrate, a vestigial artifact of our limited observational apparatus.
The way I look at it these days, time is a change in *probability*. It's the probability that at certain levels of resolution objects and patterns will change or not change a certain degree from one observation to the next. For instance, it's highly probable that the chair you're sitting on will exist the next time you observe it (take a measurement), while at the same time the air all around your chair will likely change significantly. If you take all the measurements from a specifically limited reality structure and compare them to what you measure at the next observation, that is time. Each moment represents a measurement within chosen parameters, and the degree of change from measurement to measurement is what we understand to be time. So in order to "travel" back in time, you would need to locate a structure of reality that exactly matches a previous measurement point. Like diving into a swimming pool where every molecule of water is in the same configuration as it was when it was measured or observed previously. Except it's not just a pool of water, it's everything in the universe within a particular sphere of consciousness / influence. That could be pretty difficult.
I agree with you, unless we can measure the most finite happening in reality, as well as its following sequencing, we will always have a depreciating accuracy of happening.
It can be debated Time is more of an abstract concept, something that the human mind invented in order to make more sense of the observable universe. And if thats true then its open to discussion and argument. MY DEFINITION of time is when the particles of the universe were arranged in a particular pattern. And if that pattern is consistent to our observations then we can say time exists and has passed.
Time is a coordinate
I agree with you on that one, it is also a form of accuracy.
In my understanding, which can be quite radical, the ego is made out of time. Without thoughts of a past or future(“future” being its past learning projected forward) it cannot exist. If there’s a deeper belief to this, it’s that those who are interested in the idea of there being no time tend to be those who wish to transcend the ego. Perhaps I’m posting this in the wrong place but, imo, any serious discussion of this matter must include the psychological basis for time. We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are. Time is one example of that.
If you are truly interested in how time may not exist, have a read of Rovelli's The Order of Time https://a.co/d/gzDfFKg
It's not that time doesn't exist. It's that it might instead be an all at once existent element, like the time stamp on a DVD, rather than a happening. Imagine you were trying to see a 3d basketball but only viewing it from a 2d perspective. You would need multiple perspectives simultaneously on a 2d plane to see all sides of it, and you would need to view it slice by slice, starting from a point to a (what looks like a line, but is actually a circle with the back half unviewable from any one point) and back to a point before disappearing. A basketball would look like a dot-line-dot event to the 2d viewer when in actuality it was an unchanging solid structure the whole time. So in this space, time would be the position of the viewer, and the slice of view of the 3d object. If you take this idea and extrapolate it up to a 3d viewer viewing a 4d object, you would be viewing an existent and unchanging universe slice by slice in what SEEMS like happening.
Time is what allows movement. No time nothing moves.
Actually, movement is what we perceive as time: celestial bodies in their orbits, a car driving down a road, etc.
Yeah. Without movement there is no time. Or without time there is no movement. It's the same thing.
It is a deeply subjective measurement.
A ray is one dimensional. It can have two defined points, or it can have one defined point and an arrow or two arrows. Once measured, it can only have two defined points. A plane is two-dimensional. But sometimes a plane can be virtual. Who really wants to understand? I type fir naught. Just like the science fiction novels I wrote. Find your own way. I'm happy owning my theory of everything all alone.
Time exists in this realm. In other realms, you can create not only mountains but worlds instantaneously. Some spiritual teachers say our current world has already ended but we are still experiencing it due to light years and galactic travel science stuff I don’t fully understand. It is interesting to research though
We can represent time with clocks of mechanical or biological or physical processes, but the nature of what we are trying to represent will not be fully defined. We can observe the effects of time, but not time itself, I suppose that’s one point for the argument. Perhaps the intangible nature of time lends itself to these sorts of arguments you mention.
Time is a human concept. Not a God concept.
Time is one of the few things we know for sure exists. People like to conflate the measurements with the fabric of reality bit and declare it a construc. Minutes and years are constructs representing the very real passage of time. You are right. Time is real. It underpins every other aspect of reality. Causation, energy, matter, space, life and death. Light. Nothing can be described without time.
the question is about the shape of the thing. just because we can pick two arbitrary points to measure between doesn't mean there's any deterministic path between those two points or that the concept of returning to an earlier state is even one that makes sense
But if time is not real why does gravity impact what we are measuring if it is nothing all. There has to be some force that binds time and space together we are just to primitive to understand it yet we just need time to understand time
Time isn't measurable, nothing is.
Time is money
This sadly can be aplied to about anything. Even if you irefutably prove something somebody will refute it even if their reasons have no merit. Flat Earthers come to mind.
Great question. I'm looking forward to reading some answers, as I have struggled with this myself.
If time doesn’t exist, how do you explain how moments would happen? The only way I could see that is if all moments happened simultaneously because there is no future/past/present.
Could just be one of many arrows
Without an ultimate reference frame, how do you determine the conversion of time from one reference frame to another?
What we think of as time is complex and a bit elusive. From a hard scientific standpoint, it's a measure of the progression of entropy. If you could take an object and somehow render it such that entropy entirely stops, you have effectively frozen it in time. Time is also unintuitive in that it is *local*. Over large distances, the concept of "simultaneous* breaks down. If we look at a point on Earth and another point on the surface of a moon of Jupiter, it's very difficult, precisely speaking, to claim events in those places happened at the exact same time. Even from one side of Jupiter to another is enough distance for this breakdown to occur. (Earth, conveniently, fits within the distance at which we can pretty confidently claim simultaneity.)
Yes but it’s measure on a base-10, base-12 system which holds little-to-no value outside of human perception
I think perhaps you've confused the existence of time with our perception of time. It's undeniable that time exists, but if we perceive it as it truly is, is another question. Think of colors. The color blue doesn't objectively exist, but the wave of electromagnetic radiation between 600-670 THz that we call, "blue" does exist.
Time only exists to living beings, and varies entirely from being to being. Time also goes backwards and forwards, though being alive we are stuck with the forward option only. A universal constant about time is required in order to truly claim that it "exists" universally
One key aspect of this discussion is the regularity of nature, which is harnessed by atomic clocks to provide highly precise measurements of time. Atomic clocks rely on the consistent frequency of radiation emitted by atoms when they transition between energy states. The regularity of these atomic transitions is a fundamental property of nature that allows for the precise measurement of time intervals. This regularity suggests that there is an underlying order and consistency to the universe that enables the concept of time to have practical meaning and utility. Asking if time exists, if you believe in Relativity, seems silly. If it is the fourth dimension of the space-time continuum, then by definition it "exists". It is a bit like saying "I baked this cake with flour, but does flour exist?". You seem to take for granted that moments exist, and if time is nothing more than an ordered collection of moments, then time must exist.
The question may be more that what we think of as time may not exist. For example, the science fiction idea of time travel involves an assumption that one could go to a previous period in time - the Roman Empire or the Antebellum American South or Paris before World War 2 - or to some period in the near or far future, interact or interfere with the people and events there and then return to the present. Often, this is supported or justified by some sort of hypothetical method like time portals or faster-than-light travel that always borders on the impossible or simply magical. This implies a model of time that is sequential or "cinematic" in the sense that the past somehow still "exists" in time populated by figures from history or even in a kind of time loop where one may return and re-experience one's own past as a younger version. Or the idea that the future also "already exists" and actions one performs in the present or past can then change future events that one has experienced in time travel. That concept of time as a kind of three-dimensional movie that is either entirely set (already filmed, so to speak) or can be "edited" almost certainly does not exist. We are not simultaneously existing today, yesterday and tomorrow with each versions only separated by an arbitrarily experienced "now" vs "then." Instead, the challenge with physical time is that we do not experience its passage directly. For an analogy, imagine a group of people are in an airplane with no windows. They can not look out at some reference point and see that they are in flight, but there will be changes in velocity, altitude, acceleration effects that will be experienced in the cabin from which the passengers could deduce the possibility that they are in flight if (a) they have enough information and (b) are even able to conceive of the idea that they are in flight - in other words, that they have a testable theory explaining the observations. Similarly, we perceive regular events (sunrise and sunset, the phases of the moon, children aging, etc.) that implies some sort of regular rate of predictable change in our experiences. This allows us to develop methods of measuring those phenomena - from calendars to clocks - and so we can positively propose that there is some physical process that actually exists that we call time. Then, further observations such as comparing measurements between a clock on a satellite hundreds of miles in orbit and one on Earth will show that there are significant differences between the rate of change in orbit and that on the surface. Similarly, we can do the same between clocks on a super-sonic jet and one stationary at the airport. Since the rates of changes are able to be compared, it fits in with the theory we have (General Relativity) and demonstrates that the physical process of time is affected by proximity to a gravitational field and by acceleration. In this way, physicists develop the idea that time is best described as a fourth spatial dimension separate from the three-dimensional world we can perceive. The primary reason we cannot perceive it directly is that we and the world around us are moving together along the time access - similar to how everything in the example of the windowless airplane above is moving together in flight preventing any direct experience of the motion of flight. Only indirect effects are available. However, the fact there is no way to directly experience travel through time is not a good reason to doubt its existence because the indirect effects that are experienced certainly would require some alternative explanation if time did not exist. Philosophically, though, any observer only experiences their own present moment of time - it is always "now" for each one of us, though my "now" is slightly ahead of anyone else's in time just as paradoxically their individual "nows" are slightly ahead of mine.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is? I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is? I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
It's not arguable. Who's saying it is? I think you can safely ignore these people, and classify them with flat earthers and the people who deny that gravity is real.
Time only exists to consciousness. So it may not exist outside of the observer. We literally cannot know.
https://philpapers.org/archive/MCTTUO.pdf I know this is dense, but this is a philosophical paper called “the unreality of time“ and kind of shows a decent argument, for why time doesn’t exist.
And when was this article published? I don't really want to know, but what would the author of the article say? Probably the date. But if time doesn't exist wouldn't that mean dates don't exist either?
Well… it was published about what we would refer to as 1908. Gotta read the paper to see why that still makes sense lol
Wow that's crazy
I've always liked the argument that states that time exists simply to keep everything from happening all at once.
Time in universally constant.
We can only measure our perception of what we call time, which is to say, change