Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst
I measure time principally by remembeing what I have done since the last time I looked at a clock. If I cannot remember what I have done since looking at a clock I am not able to accuratly "tell time".
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I think you are confusing subjective impressions of the passage of time with time itself. Time is not dependent upon our perception of it. Time is not even dependent upon the measurement of it, which involves change. Time is fundamental to reality. Time would still elapse, even if there were no change.
What is questionable about time is:
- Is it a dimension like the spatial ones?
- Would time still exist if the universe did not exist?
I think that the answer to the first is no. The past, present and future do not co-exist in the way that different locations in space co-exist. Scientifically it is necessary to
model time as a dimension, as the equation of motion shows. This allows us to take a specific object moving at a given velocity and "run time fowards" to determine where it will go, and "run time backwards" to determine where it came from. But this happens in our minds, not in reality. In reality, all events occur in the present, and time is a sequence of instances of the present.
I think that the answer to the second is also no. Though, obviously, it is imposible to prove this, because if the universe did not exist there would be no way of determining whether time was passing or not. But to me, it is meaningless to talk of time (or space) as existing in the absence of the physical universe. Which makes time (and space) a property of the physical universe. Arguably, both time and space came into existence at the Big Bang, and would cease to exist at the Big Crunch (should that ever occur).
