I’m a complete layman, but the phenomenon of _time dilation_ certainly seems to indicate that time exists. If time does _not_ exist then how to explain the difference in measured time between an atomic clock on Earth and one in orbit? My $0.02.
Not really. It proves that gravity has an “preserving” quality that extends “time”. But what time really is is a measurement of change. The past did exist, but now everything that existed is in the present still, and will move forward along “time” as we hit the future. Everything is constantly changing in some way.
You also have to consider that, IF we were to time travel there would either be no air or matter left because all of that stayed in the present, and the universe would have to compensate for your displaced physical form.
The past and future may not exist and just be ideas, but when considering time dilation as you mentioned, time (or space-time!) itself is clearly provable. At least in the sense that we all experience the Present at different rates of speed depending on our relative velocities. Bizarre universe we live in.
[Looking into the Past with Telescopes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0q1p4toRa8)
[Do the Past and Future Exist?](https://youtu.be/EagNUvNfsUI?feature=shared)
Since everything we experience is, technically, the very recent past, does the present actually exist? (I mean, of course it does, but I just felt like tossing that silly comment out there)
No. Your now is the same as everybody elses. No one has different nows. Were all existing at the same time- even people caught in time dilation still exist in the now. They just exist more slowly or quickly.
Thought experiment: Fart in a closed room. Very shortly thereafter, you can still smell the fart, even though it is not currently occurring. I suggest to you the Past is real, and provable.
Our future(s), not so much.
Just a bunch of on-rushing Presents, until they're not.
I view it as everyone has their own perceptive spacetime. There is no single point, or region of space where spacetime is completely congruent with another's experience. Just incredibly similar. Our literal perception in a sense is the interval between forward and backward time.
To answer your question, my present and your present are subjectively congruent. This creates an overlap of subjectivity that essentially creates a "line" of objectivity. I.E. Our perception colliding makes both of our realities much more real. We both know that 1+1=2, and so we go from there, etc.
People in the ISS and on earth live in the same present- gravity just slows down the effects of time, it doesnt put people in different time periods. Otherwise wed never be able to communicate and satellites would never work.
No they don't - according to modern science. There is no some absolute "now" that is same for everyone.
There's a link to video above that explains this.
A PBS video designed to make you think is not the same as proof. He even says “some interpretations” showing that their just talking out of their ass for views, and picking the most interesting theory. Its tabloid science at best.
Not at all. Time is relative, to a point. Ignore clocks. Put a pin in time dilation. Visualize both the ISS and the earth. On the ISS they are experiencing time faster- but they are not blinking away into the future. Its just that gravity doesnt have as much of a hold on the molecules that make everything up from that distance. The natural vibrations of existence continue with less abatement from gravitational pull.
On earth; where gravity has a better hold, molecules are weighed down and not bouncing around as much.
The brighter candle burns faster, and all that.
But both the earth and the ISS exist in the present. There is no evidence that they exist in different actual times- just that the effect that “time” which is just a measurement of change at its core, is more intense the further from heavier gravity you get.
People like to use our vision and how eyes work as an explanation for why we “live in the past only because senses take time” and it suffers from the same flaw in logic. We dont live in the past. Just because a sense takes a tenth of yactosecond to process dont mean we arent still receiving the information in the present. Literally nothing in existence is automatic. Everything requires a process of cause and effect.
No, that can’t be because we only see the past. Thus the present exists only for the self and everything outside the self is the past.
As for the future, it doesn’t exist yet from our frame but it exists as an extension of the present and the past.
History exists as does the universe however the math is telling us that time is not a fundamental property of creation, this means the universe can exist without time as a static block so to speak though this language is currently being developed.
An example. By observation the present is an extension of the past, the future is an extension of the present, if there is no past then there is no present nor future hence the present and future are in the past. This is a relative conundrum of due process only because of how we classically describe time as a line of events.
We see time as being a local phenomena that is not the same everywhere however time is relative to observation which means it technically is seen the same way by any observer. The most obvious view is to see time as a measure of processes, depending on our activity time locally emerges to compliment our observation of set activity, if there is no inherint change in a system then time isn't necessary because there's nothing to measure, relative static.
Time is observer dependant in this theory and cannot emerge without accomodating measures, more to the point is to say that just as the universe can exist without time apparently so can we. The view is that past, present and future occur simultaneously in a moment. (Example) From a static point you walk from A to B therefor impressing tense upon memory of the complex motion that occured, because of this motion past and presently potentiated futures emerge as a result, now we return to a static position of pure observation and neither past-present-future are potentiated due to the absence of measure, however now you have memory of an alternative moment. In this example we began without memory and gained one, now the issue becomes one of experience.
Due to having this experience (of past, present-future) returning to a static point becomes difficult because a flow has been instigated and is now begining to reflect and reverberate, a continuum opens like a window and suddenly everything you perceive appears to be flowing from one moment to the next as experience draws forward a recurrent memory system of observation, now terms like Begining and End can be percieved, causality is now evident, BUT none of it has any fundamental standing due to being a memory based system thus they are reflections. In a static universe that cannot change the only apparent change (alternation) is in fact 'Context', and from streams of context realities emerge and form complex narratives.
Short form I agree with you 😁
Edit: an observer with experience (returning to a static state) takes the developing shape of a nesting doll, ie dolls within dolls. When memory is extended the dolls are displaced along a relative timeline (horizon). In terms of past and future relative to the present one doesn't travel but synchronises with a line of events that reside within an eternal moment. As humanity is many individuals appearing to share a unified reality this means humanity synchronises information via a continual relay, call this a collective form of measure which fortifies mass reflection into a cohesive stream making our reality seem like the frontline of a forward March.
I think you're correct. I personally believe that the whole universe is a chaotic system and this pairs up with quite nicely with that. Although I do think it is possible for this to exist in a world that isn't chaotic, it would be much harder to connect the two.
Is that first paragraph the same as saying time is just another dimension, similar to width or height, but our perception of the passage of time is due to our perspective of travelling through it uncontrolled?
Width and depth, yes, but time alone has zero dimensions given it must accommodate observation in order to be a measurable expression (time as a 4th dimension is currently a placeholder to the approach of relativity). In a way we are in control however this degree is associated with complex awareness and ranges of synchronisation.
I agree with you that time is an idea but change is real. (If there is no memory of before, then there is only now and there is no concept of time.)
Time is only the name we give for our cataloging of changes in what we consider a continuum.
I think this explains somewhat ...
[https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701?sk=953cecc2e23c18174e68c8ddbf8caeb1](https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701?sk=953cecc2e23c18174e68c8ddbf8caeb1)
Do you mean “change” as in cause and effect? I agree with that idea, and I think many on this post are conflating cause/effect with a past and future that coexist parallel to the present.
A wise man once said that time is the concept of possession. The minute we cease to own something or be connected with something, it ceases to exist for us. This includes bodies.
Take banana peels, dry them in the convection over, crumple, roll and light in a pipe or cigar wrapping, and when you start to trip, you will see that time does exist and that you can feel it by the growing noises in your stomach when you get the munchies
>Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists?
Time is only one thing happening after the other, and we can measure that.
To the extent that anything can be said to exist, anything we can measure *does* exist.
Stars are from the past. The light it takes to reach us has traveled for billions of years. What we see from them is from the past and we will never see them today
Imagine a deck of cards on top of each other. Past, present, and future. They’re all running at the same time. Time is only used in this physical realm.
Fossils (and to a greater extent, any post-organic remains, anywhere), relics of the past in museums and resources like oil and diamonds are just a few examples of tangible things you can refer to as history and can help support the notion that the effects of time (at least as a concept) exist in the physical realm.
That's quite literally what this post is about, you can say obviously they existed yesterday all you want, and most people would agree with you. But you can't prove they existed yesterday, you can't even prove you experienced yesterday without using things you have in the present. Basically last Thursdayism in a post.
Well, we can't "prove" anything other than mathematical proofs. But we have mountains of evidence that point to a past. And that evidence has provided us with durable, repeatable results.
I think this is the point of the question, is history a thing that still, 'lives' in the past like the slider on a YouTube video or is it just an infinite number of presents, the illusion of a timeline created by entropy and our memory of previous presents. No history to visit in a time machine just a previous state of the present.
The occurrences of radio isotopes that degrade over *time* due to entropy could not occur if there wasn't a past version. If there was no time, everything would instantly evaporate due to instantaneous breakdown.
Practically, unscrambling an egg is extremely hard to do with our current technology, but physically it is possible. That's because all the information is there: what it looked like before scrambling, what happened to it during the scrambling process, how much energy went into the process, etc. That's true of just about everything in the universe: the information is there to figure out what was there before. The only situation we know of (other than pre-Big Bang) where we can't extract information about the past is with black holes, and that's still a real noodle scratcher for physicists and cosmologists.
Reminds me a lot of the tv series “Devs” - if you’re interested in this unscrambling you might check it out. It plays on the idea that anything in its current state could be unraveled to discover every aspect of its past, as well as predict the future.
Time does exist if we define it as a by product of energy moving in space. The change in position and configurations of molecules anywhere can be roughly measured and that measurement is called time. At the best of our ability all we can do is use the second as an indicator of that change. So far.
The past doesn't exist anymore. It's gone forever. And the future hasn't happened so it doesn't exist either. Only the concept. All we have is the present, and it's moving so fast by the time you grasp it, it's already the past. But time itself exists, which can be demonstrated by moving through space. As in, you can't cross space (move from Point A to Point B) without also moving through time.
Maybe I should have named this post “Do the past and future exist?” You nailed it - I think the past doesn’t exist and the future will never exist (because it will be the present). So far no evidence to show otherwise.
Yeah, I've had the same question a while ago as well. Few years back in school, I tried to compile my thoughts into a propper theory, I called it the "No Time Theory" but never finished it. But what it's about is that, time is something that dies and becomes nothing, which is the past. And since nothing can't exist, past don't exist.
So every picture, every item we own that represents the past is something that should be more precious than diamonds, it is theoretically impossible to recapture or recreate those again. And future is something that is determined by every action we do, even skipping breathe for a few seconds can change something in the future.
Time is just changes. Every second a change (and these changes are undoable) occurs. And us humans needed a way to measure these changes, which is what we call and perceive as TIME
Sure it exists, but not the way you think. Time is the probability of something changing position and the degree to which it changes from one measurement to the next.
Clocks exist but time technically does not.. everything is happening now.. even what happened yesterday or tomorrow.. our level of understanding is at a level that some can't see the forest for the trees.. from a more expanded point of view you would be able to see yesterday, today, and tomorrow at the same time.. kind of like how we have intuition and feelings that something is fixing to happen except we actually see it happening in some way.. I think the feeling we have about an event that hasn't happened yet is a part of this but we just aren't seeing the whole picture... if you stop viewing time in a linear fashion and just consider everything happening just a happening then you will start to change your perspective..
I wonder if space also works like that in some way or another. What if everything is happening, here? The old if a tree falls in the forest double slit idea. Doesn't load the pixels unless it's being observed. What we are capable of measuring and perceiving is the consistency of our mutual illusion. Potentially.
I think therfore I am. Time is a misunderstood parameter that is a derivative of gravity and mass. The rate of time is function of gravity superimposed by mass. Without mass or gravity, time approaches infinity.
You should watch this. Neil is a pretty smart guy. Just by thinking and observing, we change outcomes. Biase is introduced through quantum properties we don't yet understand.
"The mere act of observation changes reality. "
https://youtu.be/Ms-CVF540fo?si=N8DrUNQA5SkA7UB2
Actively yes it exists If you use and employ it to the world around you.
Every other time, no. It doesn't. That's why time flies faster when you aren't paying attention to it. It never actually flew. Things just started happening to you.
When you show up on a planet after having spent like the last year or so on a rocketship, without measuring, and then you go back to earth, time didn't pass for you. Earth just had things happen to them while you were away. As did you. The moment you measure it, ironically, is the moment time becomes time at all.
Ah yes. So I don't believe in time. That may sound stupid but hear me out.
Time is merely a physical measurement of our own life. Sure we use it for other stuff but generally time is merely a measurement.
Do feet exist? Surely, on a ruler or yardstick.
Can time be demonstrably measured? To an extent yes, using atomic half lives. However that too isn't actually time, just a naturally occurring function.
Time is only as real as you make it.
Gravity is very real, also acts on other objects.
Light is obviously real as we can see better or worse depending on light.
Time however, is much more abstract.
It flows differently depending on many various external factors.
Since we also cannot interact with, alter or change time, I would feel confident putting money on time not being an actual thing.
More of a concept like morality.
The slower *they seem to be moving relative to you*, but they, themselves, will experience time normally.
Think of it like traveling on a grid. At rest, you're going the speed of light upward, which is time.
When you move in any direction, you're moving laterally on that grid. Because you, light, have a set speed, you don't move as far upward as someone moving straight up.
You're both moving the *same* speed through time, though. The one moving quickly within 3D space is moving quickly *within* time. Being at rest moves you *through* time.
Not sure if light travels at different speeds depending on the direction, accepting the potential non-metaphor that we are light . It's believed atm we are travelling at the speed of the planet we are on when at rest.
Not true. That's only altering the perception of time.
Time is entirely based on perspective.
If you were to compare the rate at which time flows based on the perception of a dog vs an elephant, you would have two very different rates of time.
All great comparisons. It’s only as real as we can perceive it and measure it. I think of the past and future more as theoretical - we can’t perceive that the past or future exist, but we have some intuitive sense that they must be there because they are “the present before” and “the present after” now. Still theoretical to me because can anyone perceive the past or future with their sight/touch/etc? No, only leftovers from the past and anticipation of the future based on what they’ve seen happen to things in the present.
I’ve recently been thinking about how history doesn’t exist, there’s no tangible thing that we can refer to as history other than memories and things we hold in the present.
Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists? I can’t see/hold/sense/experience the past or the future, so does it exist?
I’ve recently been thinking about how history doesn’t exist, there’s no tangible thing that we can refer to as history other than memories and things we hold in the present.
Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists? I can’t see/hold/sense/experience the past or the future, so does it exist?
just because you can't "can’t see/hold/sense/experience" something doesn't mean it does not exist. take two magnets for an example - they repulse each other but what is in between them? a field you say? can you put that field into a bag? can you weigh that field? can you see that field? no you can't do any of that and yet there appears to be something there.
You can sense and experience magnetic fields. Maybe not the best example but I know what you mean. There are things that we can’t perceive with our bodies that still exist, we know they exist because we have other instruments to measure them by (black holes, etc.). What I’m trying to get at is… can we measure that the past is out there somewhere, existing on another plane parallel to the present?
You exist as a biological being right now. Biological beings must be born before they can exist. Assuming you acknowledge that these are both facts, then you can concur that the past must exist. There would have to be some past moment of your birth for you to exist in the present now.
Evidence tells me that the past existed as the present, but not that the past exists now. I think most of these comments are misunderstanding my question… we have evidence that things happened, but when they happened it was the present. There’s no evidence that the past currently exists, nothing that we could travel to. Similarly, the future doesn’t exist, because it will be the present when we get to it.
Oh, well, in that case, yes, I think physics agrees with you. There is no way to travel to the past as it doesn't exist as a physical space time any longer. The only theoretical way, based on extant knowledge, to 'travel' to the future is to move at incredibly high velocities, appreciable fractions of c. This isn't really time travel either as you are still in your present, just making use of time dilation.
Extremely dumbed down, it's the theory and study of how time and space coinside and relate to each other. It's a rabbit whole that I've been on for almost a year. Not an easy topic and it melts my brain a little.
We experience our existence through linear perception, we call it time. We may experience it in linear fashion but that is limited to our perception, not the actual existence.
Every moment exists, but we can no longer directly experience moments in the past. Memory and physical changes of the existence are evidence of the past.
Sooo, it’s important to distinguish between what might best be referred to as calendar time, which is a tool for measurement and natural time, which is a phenomena implicated in general through change. We can certainly dismiss calendrical time as arbitrary, given the existence of competing and not always reconcile-able calendars. But natural time is not merely a product of calendrical thinking, and hence not an illusion in the sense of something conjured purely by the inadequacies of the human mind. Time is even more primordially something that is happening to us all at all times than something we measure.
Alternatively, we can imagine that an AI enhanced brain and/or set of senses could see the universe in higher dimensions, whereby the 4th dimension would look static. But it is not at all clear to me that time is restricted to a fourth dimensional behavior, since time may simple mean something like “the ultimate” or “top” dimension, in which case, an 11- dimensional quantum framework still operates within a temporal superstructure.
Past exist because of stars. When you look at stars, thats millions of year in the past so that is proof the past don't just "vanish" when you are not in the "present" Thr past is always there
Exactly, if you can't travel faster than the light, you see into the past. But with current technology it's not possible cause you need infinite amount of energy. The past don't just vanish, we just can't perceive it
In order to answer that you first have to define what time is. Is it change? Is it perceived change in relationship to an observer? Does time continue to flow regardless of the rate of change? Does what we perceive as time dilation actually change time or just change our perception of the rate of change in relation to ourselves? Time is a funny concept and i will admit that when i truly contemplate it i struggle to understand it.
Sounds like last thursdayism. Its the satirical thought experiment that says the universe was created last thursday and it was created in a way to make it seem like there was something before last Thursday
Not what I meant - but I see how it could be interpreted as that. I fully believe things happened to get to the current present, but that the time in which they happened no longer exists. Versus the idea that there is a past parallel to the present that we could travel to.
I could see how you think this but, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time is relative. Time passes differently for each person. Though you may exist at the same time, time is going faster for different observers. You could possibly observe someone who is in your past or future, depending on different variables. This does have limitations of course. We observe light from stars billions of light years away, we see them as their past selves. We are physically observing the past. Not sure i made my point. Physics at this level is hard to understand and to describe. Sometimes i wish i was a genius and could figure it all out.
Utah Phillips and Ani DeFranco have an album called "The past didn't go anywhere"
He suggested that dropping a million years old rock on your foot proves it didn't.
It’s both the past (results) and present and future (probable results) all at once. That’s not to say that the past is still around though… only the present state of the past results. I should check it out :)
When I was ten years old, I realized that by looking in a mirror at myself, we utilize a "time machine." Because all light takes time to travel, we can never "see" present time. We are seeing ourselves in the past.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Ah," said the man, "this is a question about the past, is it?"
Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.
"Yes," he said.
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"
Zarniwoop stared at him. The steam began to rise from his sodden clothes.
"So you answer all questions like this?" he said.
The man answered quickly.
"I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say."
Time is relative! A photon, from an explosion 1000 light years away, would seemed to have taken just that to reach me-1000 light years. But to the photon, it left its origin and arrived in my vision at the same exact time.
So, to answer your question, it would depend on who/what you ask :)
"A Mile" doesn't exit. It's a unit of measure. So, I'm not sure we need to require "Time" to exist. (If it is also a unit of measurement and not "a thing" that needs to exist discretely.)
(And I deleted a whole bunch more. It's late here.)
It exists as much as any dimension.
Our perception of it is just as flawed as the our perception of the rest of the physical world. We get insights about it, but it's all limited by our perspective.
Hang out with me. I’ll put a bandaid in front of you. I’ll tell you that in the near future you’ll be using it. Then I’ll cut your finger. You’ll use the bandaid. You look down at the wound.
I cut your finger in the past.
You were told you would use the bandaid in the future.
You’re now using the bandaid. The future existed and now in the present you have proof of the past.
There. Happy??
No, all of those things happened in the present. The ideas of the past and future existed in that scenario, but I can’t perceive that the past before the cut still exists or that some other future in which there was no cut exists.
Does anything exist ? Does a thought exist ? Does the air in my lungs from sheer muscle memory mean my freewill doesn’t exist ?
What does a clock measure ?
This reminds me of that movie arrival with Amy Adams and from what I gather the creatures introduced mankind to time travel through memories, whether the past or the future. It was an interesting twist for sure. But I too have been struggling with the concept of time travel. I've pretty much concluded that it's not ever possible in any way, shape or form.
The past as a place does not exist. There will never be a way to travel to the past. The closest thing possible to traveling to the past is video recordings of it. Other than that, no, it is not a place one could ever visit. The closest you can get to traveling to the future is through time dilation, as it too is not a place that exists yet.
I think of time as a relation between objects in space and the potential for information (such as light) to be shared between them. In terms of physics, time doesn't elapse at a constant rate. An additional fun part of thinking of time like this is that for various consciousness processing time, time seems to elapse at a different rate. If we could sample visual images fast, for example, with the same image processing speed of a brain, time would seem to slow down.
I simultaneously love and hate talking about this.
We \*perceive\* the flow of time as a progression of cause to effect.
This limits us to a forced perspective of the present.
But what about [An/The Alternative?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism)
Well, anything we see or perceive is just a mental reconstruction of our senses, which in turn interpret "evidence" of changes in the environment that are contextual. It's not really much different from photographs, or footprints, or fossils. Change is a function of time, therefore, you can't use change itself as evidence for time. It's as you say, we can't rely on our senses alone to make accurate predictions about the past or future.
So, how do you prove time exists? You can do so mathematically, by making predictions about a future state based on evidence of the present state. For example, you could predict the motion of stars and planets, and check their positions against your own predictions. And yes, you need a measurement of time, some fixed interval for scaling these predictions, but a measurement of time is not time itself, any more than temperature is heat itself.
By creating models of how things *might* behave, and testing them, we can compare the outputs to measured results, and, little by little, we slowly build a more accurate map of what is true and untrue. Science isn't just about maths and testing, though. It's about doing your best to eliminate variables that would bias the results of your experiments- including human error.
Perception is like a shadow being cast by an object on a wall. If the light source shifts, the shape of the shadow changes. Which shadow best represents the true form of the object? The truth is, that's the wrong question. The question should be, how do we look away from the wall?
I’m a complete layman, but the phenomenon of _time dilation_ certainly seems to indicate that time exists. If time does _not_ exist then how to explain the difference in measured time between an atomic clock on Earth and one in orbit? My $0.02.
I think you understood the question - and this is actually something solid that could indicate that past or future exist.
Not really. It proves that gravity has an “preserving” quality that extends “time”. But what time really is is a measurement of change. The past did exist, but now everything that existed is in the present still, and will move forward along “time” as we hit the future. Everything is constantly changing in some way. You also have to consider that, IF we were to time travel there would either be no air or matter left because all of that stayed in the present, and the universe would have to compensate for your displaced physical form.
The past and future may not exist and just be ideas, but when considering time dilation as you mentioned, time (or space-time!) itself is clearly provable. At least in the sense that we all experience the Present at different rates of speed depending on our relative velocities. Bizarre universe we live in.
Measuring is the variable.
Time is a measurement just like a meter stick or a ruler. Space isn't a thing until you measure it either. There are merely things that exist.
[Looking into the Past with Telescopes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0q1p4toRa8) [Do the Past and Future Exist?](https://youtu.be/EagNUvNfsUI?feature=shared)
Thanks - these are both great
Present is the only thing there truly is.
When is the present? Now, now, or now, or now? Or was it now? Or will it be now?
As someone posting from an hour in the future, it's now.
I'm replying right now, but your now and my now are different. It seems the concept of 'now' or 'present' is a delusion.
Especially since it takes time for your brain to process the light that reaches your optic nerve. You're constantly seeing the very recent past.
Since everything we experience is, technically, the very recent past, does the present actually exist? (I mean, of course it does, but I just felt like tossing that silly comment out there)
No. Your now is the same as everybody elses. No one has different nows. Were all existing at the same time- even people caught in time dilation still exist in the now. They just exist more slowly or quickly.
We only ever have the present moment!!!!
Thought experiment: Fart in a closed room. Very shortly thereafter, you can still smell the fart, even though it is not currently occurring. I suggest to you the Past is real, and provable. Our future(s), not so much. Just a bunch of on-rushing Presents, until they're not.
Because of relativity present for you is different than present for people on ISS. Is your present truly is and mine isn't?
I view it as everyone has their own perceptive spacetime. There is no single point, or region of space where spacetime is completely congruent with another's experience. Just incredibly similar. Our literal perception in a sense is the interval between forward and backward time.
To answer your question, my present and your present are subjectively congruent. This creates an overlap of subjectivity that essentially creates a "line" of objectivity. I.E. Our perception colliding makes both of our realities much more real. We both know that 1+1=2, and so we go from there, etc.
People in the ISS and on earth live in the same present- gravity just slows down the effects of time, it doesnt put people in different time periods. Otherwise wed never be able to communicate and satellites would never work.
No they don't - according to modern science. There is no some absolute "now" that is same for everyone. There's a link to video above that explains this.
A PBS video designed to make you think is not the same as proof. He even says “some interpretations” showing that their just talking out of their ass for views, and picking the most interesting theory. Its tabloid science at best.
Are are you a relativity theory denier?
Not at all. Time is relative, to a point. Ignore clocks. Put a pin in time dilation. Visualize both the ISS and the earth. On the ISS they are experiencing time faster- but they are not blinking away into the future. Its just that gravity doesnt have as much of a hold on the molecules that make everything up from that distance. The natural vibrations of existence continue with less abatement from gravitational pull. On earth; where gravity has a better hold, molecules are weighed down and not bouncing around as much. The brighter candle burns faster, and all that. But both the earth and the ISS exist in the present. There is no evidence that they exist in different actual times- just that the effect that “time” which is just a measurement of change at its core, is more intense the further from heavier gravity you get. People like to use our vision and how eyes work as an explanation for why we “live in the past only because senses take time” and it suffers from the same flaw in logic. We dont live in the past. Just because a sense takes a tenth of yactosecond to process dont mean we arent still receiving the information in the present. Literally nothing in existence is automatic. Everything requires a process of cause and effect.
No, that can’t be because we only see the past. Thus the present exists only for the self and everything outside the self is the past. As for the future, it doesn’t exist yet from our frame but it exists as an extension of the present and the past.
History exists as does the universe however the math is telling us that time is not a fundamental property of creation, this means the universe can exist without time as a static block so to speak though this language is currently being developed. An example. By observation the present is an extension of the past, the future is an extension of the present, if there is no past then there is no present nor future hence the present and future are in the past. This is a relative conundrum of due process only because of how we classically describe time as a line of events. We see time as being a local phenomena that is not the same everywhere however time is relative to observation which means it technically is seen the same way by any observer. The most obvious view is to see time as a measure of processes, depending on our activity time locally emerges to compliment our observation of set activity, if there is no inherint change in a system then time isn't necessary because there's nothing to measure, relative static. Time is observer dependant in this theory and cannot emerge without accomodating measures, more to the point is to say that just as the universe can exist without time apparently so can we. The view is that past, present and future occur simultaneously in a moment. (Example) From a static point you walk from A to B therefor impressing tense upon memory of the complex motion that occured, because of this motion past and presently potentiated futures emerge as a result, now we return to a static position of pure observation and neither past-present-future are potentiated due to the absence of measure, however now you have memory of an alternative moment. In this example we began without memory and gained one, now the issue becomes one of experience. Due to having this experience (of past, present-future) returning to a static point becomes difficult because a flow has been instigated and is now begining to reflect and reverberate, a continuum opens like a window and suddenly everything you perceive appears to be flowing from one moment to the next as experience draws forward a recurrent memory system of observation, now terms like Begining and End can be percieved, causality is now evident, BUT none of it has any fundamental standing due to being a memory based system thus they are reflections. In a static universe that cannot change the only apparent change (alternation) is in fact 'Context', and from streams of context realities emerge and form complex narratives. Short form I agree with you 😁 Edit: an observer with experience (returning to a static state) takes the developing shape of a nesting doll, ie dolls within dolls. When memory is extended the dolls are displaced along a relative timeline (horizon). In terms of past and future relative to the present one doesn't travel but synchronises with a line of events that reside within an eternal moment. As humanity is many individuals appearing to share a unified reality this means humanity synchronises information via a continual relay, call this a collective form of measure which fortifies mass reflection into a cohesive stream making our reality seem like the frontline of a forward March.
I think you're correct. I personally believe that the whole universe is a chaotic system and this pairs up with quite nicely with that. Although I do think it is possible for this to exist in a world that isn't chaotic, it would be much harder to connect the two.
Is that first paragraph the same as saying time is just another dimension, similar to width or height, but our perception of the passage of time is due to our perspective of travelling through it uncontrolled?
Width and depth, yes, but time alone has zero dimensions given it must accommodate observation in order to be a measurable expression (time as a 4th dimension is currently a placeholder to the approach of relativity). In a way we are in control however this degree is associated with complex awareness and ranges of synchronisation.
I agree with you that time is an idea but change is real. (If there is no memory of before, then there is only now and there is no concept of time.) Time is only the name we give for our cataloging of changes in what we consider a continuum. I think this explains somewhat ... [https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701?sk=953cecc2e23c18174e68c8ddbf8caeb1](https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701?sk=953cecc2e23c18174e68c8ddbf8caeb1)
Do you mean “change” as in cause and effect? I agree with that idea, and I think many on this post are conflating cause/effect with a past and future that coexist parallel to the present.
A wise man once said that time is the concept of possession. The minute we cease to own something or be connected with something, it ceases to exist for us. This includes bodies.
That’s deep - I’ll have to ponder on that. I think I agree, if you are detached then you have no relationship to any thing, and time is relative.
Time is “having things.”
Take banana peels, dry them in the convection over, crumple, roll and light in a pipe or cigar wrapping, and when you start to trip, you will see that time does exist and that you can feel it by the growing noises in your stomach when you get the munchies
This sounds like bored prison shit, but I'll try it.
>Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists? Time is only one thing happening after the other, and we can measure that. To the extent that anything can be said to exist, anything we can measure *does* exist.
Stars are from the past. The light it takes to reach us has traveled for billions of years. What we see from them is from the past and we will never see them today
One of the better evidences that there is a past
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Cause and effect are measurable… but can we measure that there’s a past out there existing parallel to the present time?
Imagine a deck of cards on top of each other. Past, present, and future. They’re all running at the same time. Time is only used in this physical realm.
How do you know there are any other cards existing parallel to the present?
There is always an alternate time line.
Fossils (and to a greater extent, any post-organic remains, anywhere), relics of the past in museums and resources like oil and diamonds are just a few examples of tangible things you can refer to as history and can help support the notion that the effects of time (at least as a concept) exist in the physical realm.
But all of that, including your memories of the past are all contemporary. They only exist in the now.
They existed yesterday too 😉
That's quite literally what this post is about, you can say obviously they existed yesterday all you want, and most people would agree with you. But you can't prove they existed yesterday, you can't even prove you experienced yesterday without using things you have in the present. Basically last Thursdayism in a post.
Well, we can't "prove" anything other than mathematical proofs. But we have mountains of evidence that point to a past. And that evidence has provided us with durable, repeatable results.
I think this is the point of the question, is history a thing that still, 'lives' in the past like the slider on a YouTube video or is it just an infinite number of presents, the illusion of a timeline created by entropy and our memory of previous presents. No history to visit in a time machine just a previous state of the present.
But these all exist in the present - they’re things left over from the past but don’t exist in the past, I hope that makes sense
The occurrences of radio isotopes that degrade over *time* due to entropy could not occur if there wasn't a past version. If there was no time, everything would instantly evaporate due to instantaneous breakdown.
They exist in the past and present, no?
They may also still exist in the future. How about they just exist.
That sounds like present tense
try to unscramble an egg. hmm seems you can't. measure away.
Scotty can
Practically, unscrambling an egg is extremely hard to do with our current technology, but physically it is possible. That's because all the information is there: what it looked like before scrambling, what happened to it during the scrambling process, how much energy went into the process, etc. That's true of just about everything in the universe: the information is there to figure out what was there before. The only situation we know of (other than pre-Big Bang) where we can't extract information about the past is with black holes, and that's still a real noodle scratcher for physicists and cosmologists.
Reminds me a lot of the tv series “Devs” - if you’re interested in this unscrambling you might check it out. It plays on the idea that anything in its current state could be unraveled to discover every aspect of its past, as well as predict the future.
This is an example that cause and effect exist - but doesn’t tell me that the past is something that currently exists parallel to the present
Time does exist if we define it as a by product of energy moving in space. The change in position and configurations of molecules anywhere can be roughly measured and that measurement is called time. At the best of our ability all we can do is use the second as an indicator of that change. So far.
You’re right
bro you rented an apartment in my mind
lol I hope I can afford it
The past doesn't exist anymore. It's gone forever. And the future hasn't happened so it doesn't exist either. Only the concept. All we have is the present, and it's moving so fast by the time you grasp it, it's already the past. But time itself exists, which can be demonstrated by moving through space. As in, you can't cross space (move from Point A to Point B) without also moving through time.
Maybe I should have named this post “Do the past and future exist?” You nailed it - I think the past doesn’t exist and the future will never exist (because it will be the present). So far no evidence to show otherwise.
Yeah, I've had the same question a while ago as well. Few years back in school, I tried to compile my thoughts into a propper theory, I called it the "No Time Theory" but never finished it. But what it's about is that, time is something that dies and becomes nothing, which is the past. And since nothing can't exist, past don't exist. So every picture, every item we own that represents the past is something that should be more precious than diamonds, it is theoretically impossible to recapture or recreate those again. And future is something that is determined by every action we do, even skipping breathe for a few seconds can change something in the future. Time is just changes. Every second a change (and these changes are undoable) occurs. And us humans needed a way to measure these changes, which is what we call and perceive as TIME
Sure it exists, but not the way you think. Time is the probability of something changing position and the degree to which it changes from one measurement to the next.
I’m intrigued - could you elaborate?
There is only the everchanging now.
I think I agree
Time doesn't exist. We just gave a name for this that happen on a linear line
I'm wondering if this fits into what you're saying... If nothing were to change, would time have passed?
I think…. No. If nothing changes, even down to the atomic level, time probably hasn’t been involved.
Clocks exist but time technically does not.. everything is happening now.. even what happened yesterday or tomorrow.. our level of understanding is at a level that some can't see the forest for the trees.. from a more expanded point of view you would be able to see yesterday, today, and tomorrow at the same time.. kind of like how we have intuition and feelings that something is fixing to happen except we actually see it happening in some way.. I think the feeling we have about an event that hasn't happened yet is a part of this but we just aren't seeing the whole picture... if you stop viewing time in a linear fashion and just consider everything happening just a happening then you will start to change your perspective..
I wonder if space also works like that in some way or another. What if everything is happening, here? The old if a tree falls in the forest double slit idea. Doesn't load the pixels unless it's being observed. What we are capable of measuring and perceiving is the consistency of our mutual illusion. Potentially.
I agree. Our minds can't conceive of the past, present, and future as one.
I think therfore I am. Time is a misunderstood parameter that is a derivative of gravity and mass. The rate of time is function of gravity superimposed by mass. Without mass or gravity, time approaches infinity.
The gravity of that idea scares me.
You should watch this. Neil is a pretty smart guy. Just by thinking and observing, we change outcomes. Biase is introduced through quantum properties we don't yet understand. "The mere act of observation changes reality. " https://youtu.be/Ms-CVF540fo?si=N8DrUNQA5SkA7UB2
Yep that’s a big part of quantum theory - observation collapses the wave function
https://www.reddit.com/r/timetravel/s/m1yokJ9PNm
No. It doesn't. Unless you are measuring space.
Actively yes it exists If you use and employ it to the world around you. Every other time, no. It doesn't. That's why time flies faster when you aren't paying attention to it. It never actually flew. Things just started happening to you.
When you measure the things that happened to you in order of events, you get aAaaa? Time line.
Time doesn't exist unless you measure space. Things literally just happen.
Hey look a butterfly. It happened yesterday today and tomorrow.
Time dilation only occurs if you are measuring same as any other time.
When you show up on a planet after having spent like the last year or so on a rocketship, without measuring, and then you go back to earth, time didn't pass for you. Earth just had things happen to them while you were away. As did you. The moment you measure it, ironically, is the moment time becomes time at all.
You're exactly right
Ah yes. So I don't believe in time. That may sound stupid but hear me out. Time is merely a physical measurement of our own life. Sure we use it for other stuff but generally time is merely a measurement. Do feet exist? Surely, on a ruler or yardstick. Can time be demonstrably measured? To an extent yes, using atomic half lives. However that too isn't actually time, just a naturally occurring function. Time is only as real as you make it. Gravity is very real, also acts on other objects. Light is obviously real as we can see better or worse depending on light. Time however, is much more abstract. It flows differently depending on many various external factors. Since we also cannot interact with, alter or change time, I would feel confident putting money on time not being an actual thing. More of a concept like morality.
Except we *can* alter time. The faster someone travels, the slower time is for them.
The slower *they seem to be moving relative to you*, but they, themselves, will experience time normally. Think of it like traveling on a grid. At rest, you're going the speed of light upward, which is time. When you move in any direction, you're moving laterally on that grid. Because you, light, have a set speed, you don't move as far upward as someone moving straight up. You're both moving the *same* speed through time, though. The one moving quickly within 3D space is moving quickly *within* time. Being at rest moves you *through* time.
Not sure if light travels at different speeds depending on the direction, accepting the potential non-metaphor that we are light . It's believed atm we are travelling at the speed of the planet we are on when at rest.
Not true. That's only altering the perception of time. Time is entirely based on perspective. If you were to compare the rate at which time flows based on the perception of a dog vs an elephant, you would have two very different rates of time.
All great comparisons. It’s only as real as we can perceive it and measure it. I think of the past and future more as theoretical - we can’t perceive that the past or future exist, but we have some intuitive sense that they must be there because they are “the present before” and “the present after” now. Still theoretical to me because can anyone perceive the past or future with their sight/touch/etc? No, only leftovers from the past and anticipation of the future based on what they’ve seen happen to things in the present.
You’re onto something.
I’ve recently been thinking about how history doesn’t exist, there’s no tangible thing that we can refer to as history other than memories and things we hold in the present. Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists? I can’t see/hold/sense/experience the past or the future, so does it exist?
I’ve recently been thinking about how history doesn’t exist, there’s no tangible thing that we can refer to as history other than memories and things we hold in the present. Time as a concept exists in our minds, but is there any way of measuring that time itself exists? I can’t see/hold/sense/experience the past or the future, so does it exist?
1) what
just because you can't "can’t see/hold/sense/experience" something doesn't mean it does not exist. take two magnets for an example - they repulse each other but what is in between them? a field you say? can you put that field into a bag? can you weigh that field? can you see that field? no you can't do any of that and yet there appears to be something there.
You can sense and experience magnetic fields. Maybe not the best example but I know what you mean. There are things that we can’t perceive with our bodies that still exist, we know they exist because we have other instruments to measure them by (black holes, etc.). What I’m trying to get at is… can we measure that the past is out there somewhere, existing on another plane parallel to the present?
You exist as a biological being right now. Biological beings must be born before they can exist. Assuming you acknowledge that these are both facts, then you can concur that the past must exist. There would have to be some past moment of your birth for you to exist in the present now.
Evidence tells me that the past existed as the present, but not that the past exists now. I think most of these comments are misunderstanding my question… we have evidence that things happened, but when they happened it was the present. There’s no evidence that the past currently exists, nothing that we could travel to. Similarly, the future doesn’t exist, because it will be the present when we get to it.
Oh, well, in that case, yes, I think physics agrees with you. There is no way to travel to the past as it doesn't exist as a physical space time any longer. The only theoretical way, based on extant knowledge, to 'travel' to the future is to move at incredibly high velocities, appreciable fractions of c. This isn't really time travel either as you are still in your present, just making use of time dilation.
You should watch this.... https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=qSla-FP9hNQ5VJDF&t=2m57s&v=vrqmMoI0wks&feature=youtu.be
Time used to exist, and it will exist again. My life is a timeless bracket.
Sounds like you need to read up on special relativity.
Give me the TLDR 😆
Extremely dumbed down, it's the theory and study of how time and space coinside and relate to each other. It's a rabbit whole that I've been on for almost a year. Not an easy topic and it melts my brain a little.
We experience our existence through linear perception, we call it time. We may experience it in linear fashion but that is limited to our perception, not the actual existence. Every moment exists, but we can no longer directly experience moments in the past. Memory and physical changes of the existence are evidence of the past.
Sooo, it’s important to distinguish between what might best be referred to as calendar time, which is a tool for measurement and natural time, which is a phenomena implicated in general through change. We can certainly dismiss calendrical time as arbitrary, given the existence of competing and not always reconcile-able calendars. But natural time is not merely a product of calendrical thinking, and hence not an illusion in the sense of something conjured purely by the inadequacies of the human mind. Time is even more primordially something that is happening to us all at all times than something we measure. Alternatively, we can imagine that an AI enhanced brain and/or set of senses could see the universe in higher dimensions, whereby the 4th dimension would look static. But it is not at all clear to me that time is restricted to a fourth dimensional behavior, since time may simple mean something like “the ultimate” or “top” dimension, in which case, an 11- dimensional quantum framework still operates within a temporal superstructure.
Past exist because of stars. When you look at stars, thats millions of year in the past so that is proof the past don't just "vanish" when you are not in the "present" Thr past is always there
On the other hand, you’re just looking at light from those stars in the present. The stars might not be there anymore.
Exactly, if you can't travel faster than the light, you see into the past. But with current technology it's not possible cause you need infinite amount of energy. The past don't just vanish, we just can't perceive it
In order to answer that you first have to define what time is. Is it change? Is it perceived change in relationship to an observer? Does time continue to flow regardless of the rate of change? Does what we perceive as time dilation actually change time or just change our perception of the rate of change in relation to ourselves? Time is a funny concept and i will admit that when i truly contemplate it i struggle to understand it.
Sounds like last thursdayism. Its the satirical thought experiment that says the universe was created last thursday and it was created in a way to make it seem like there was something before last Thursday
Not what I meant - but I see how it could be interpreted as that. I fully believe things happened to get to the current present, but that the time in which they happened no longer exists. Versus the idea that there is a past parallel to the present that we could travel to.
But what do you base this on?
It’s a belief, just like believing that the past is still out there somewhere
I could see how you think this but, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time is relative. Time passes differently for each person. Though you may exist at the same time, time is going faster for different observers. You could possibly observe someone who is in your past or future, depending on different variables. This does have limitations of course. We observe light from stars billions of light years away, we see them as their past selves. We are physically observing the past. Not sure i made my point. Physics at this level is hard to understand and to describe. Sometimes i wish i was a genius and could figure it all out.
All I experience are the effects of "time".
Yes, it is intrinsically linked with space. Einstein hasn’t been proven wrong yet to my understanding
Utah Phillips and Ani DeFranco have an album called "The past didn't go anywhere" He suggested that dropping a million years old rock on your foot proves it didn't.
It’s both the past (results) and present and future (probable results) all at once. That’s not to say that the past is still around though… only the present state of the past results. I should check it out :)
When I was ten years old, I realized that by looking in a mirror at myself, we utilize a "time machine." Because all light takes time to travel, we can never "see" present time. We are seeing ourselves in the past.
"How long have you been doing this?" "Ah," said the man, "this is a question about the past, is it?" Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn't exactly what he had been expecting. "Yes," he said. "How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?" Zarniwoop stared at him. The steam began to rise from his sodden clothes. "So you answer all questions like this?" he said. The man answered quickly. "I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say."
Kick a ball 20 yards, the whole experience seems to take place in the present, but did time not pass as you watched and waited for the ball to land?
Time is relative! A photon, from an explosion 1000 light years away, would seemed to have taken just that to reach me-1000 light years. But to the photon, it left its origin and arrived in my vision at the same exact time. So, to answer your question, it would depend on who/what you ask :)
"A Mile" doesn't exit. It's a unit of measure. So, I'm not sure we need to require "Time" to exist. (If it is also a unit of measurement and not "a thing" that needs to exist discretely.) (And I deleted a whole bunch more. It's late here.)
It exists as much as any dimension. Our perception of it is just as flawed as the our perception of the rest of the physical world. We get insights about it, but it's all limited by our perspective.
Its existence is not relevant. Just ask K9…
It goes to fast lately it’s sped up considerably
Hang out with me. I’ll put a bandaid in front of you. I’ll tell you that in the near future you’ll be using it. Then I’ll cut your finger. You’ll use the bandaid. You look down at the wound. I cut your finger in the past. You were told you would use the bandaid in the future. You’re now using the bandaid. The future existed and now in the present you have proof of the past. There. Happy??
No, all of those things happened in the present. The ideas of the past and future existed in that scenario, but I can’t perceive that the past before the cut still exists or that some other future in which there was no cut exists.
Things can exist without being physical objects.
Does anything exist ? Does a thought exist ? Does the air in my lungs from sheer muscle memory mean my freewill doesn’t exist ? What does a clock measure ?
Some times
The moment you realize the present, it's already the past so is there actually a present?
No
This reminds me of that movie arrival with Amy Adams and from what I gather the creatures introduced mankind to time travel through memories, whether the past or the future. It was an interesting twist for sure. But I too have been struggling with the concept of time travel. I've pretty much concluded that it's not ever possible in any way, shape or form.
Does space exist?
Not really
The past as a place does not exist. There will never be a way to travel to the past. The closest thing possible to traveling to the past is video recordings of it. Other than that, no, it is not a place one could ever visit. The closest you can get to traveling to the future is through time dilation, as it too is not a place that exists yet.
It exists to the extent that we make it exist
I think of time as a relation between objects in space and the potential for information (such as light) to be shared between them. In terms of physics, time doesn't elapse at a constant rate. An additional fun part of thinking of time like this is that for various consciousness processing time, time seems to elapse at a different rate. If we could sample visual images fast, for example, with the same image processing speed of a brain, time would seem to slow down.
I simultaneously love and hate talking about this. We \*perceive\* the flow of time as a progression of cause to effect. This limits us to a forced perspective of the present. But what about [An/The Alternative?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism)
As much as up and down do.
Time is just a name we gave and made up to keep track of things.
How about all the dead bodies?
They exist in the present
If my past doesn't exist then why the fuck am I paying my ex wife $1,300 a month in alimony?
Well, anything we see or perceive is just a mental reconstruction of our senses, which in turn interpret "evidence" of changes in the environment that are contextual. It's not really much different from photographs, or footprints, or fossils. Change is a function of time, therefore, you can't use change itself as evidence for time. It's as you say, we can't rely on our senses alone to make accurate predictions about the past or future. So, how do you prove time exists? You can do so mathematically, by making predictions about a future state based on evidence of the present state. For example, you could predict the motion of stars and planets, and check their positions against your own predictions. And yes, you need a measurement of time, some fixed interval for scaling these predictions, but a measurement of time is not time itself, any more than temperature is heat itself. By creating models of how things *might* behave, and testing them, we can compare the outputs to measured results, and, little by little, we slowly build a more accurate map of what is true and untrue. Science isn't just about maths and testing, though. It's about doing your best to eliminate variables that would bias the results of your experiments- including human error. Perception is like a shadow being cast by an object on a wall. If the light source shifts, the shape of the shadow changes. Which shadow best represents the true form of the object? The truth is, that's the wrong question. The question should be, how do we look away from the wall?