Time doesn't exist...?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Originally Posted by rectangleboy

Considering the fact that humans made up the concept of time, basing it off of our own planet, would it be justifiable to say that time did not exist? Given that evolution is true, there couldn't have been a concept of time at the beginning of the universe, because there were no people to create the idea of time. If you really think about it, time is something that's pretty new, considering the idea that humans, with cognitive ability, only came into existence about 100,000 years ago.
My question is, is this a valid idea, or has time just always existed? Everything we see is really what we make of it. Thus, throughout the universe, time really isn't a constant, because different planets have different days, years, etc.
But in all that I've read about theories of the beginning of the universe, they're always centered around the beginning of time. There's always an age for everything, but, maybe, could time not exist? Could it be some sort of concept that we, as humans, cannot live without, like, for many of us, God? Or is it one of those things in the universe that have to exist, like gravity? Pretty much, my question is, is this a valid idea, or am I just some rambling idiot?
Trevor

You aren't an idiot, that's for sure. It takes a hell of a lot of guts to question such an icon as time but, I question whether it exists as well. Assume for a moment that it doesn't, at least, not outside of ourselves anyway. Also consider the almost universal fallacy that what we perceive actually exists. It's true most of the time, but not always. Time is such a phenomenon. You cannot point at anything outside of yourself that you can say is time. You can only represent time via internal references such as, "this is the way it was" and "this is the way it is" and the difference is the effect of time. Look at the discussions involving DoctorDick and the discussions about time by InfiniteNow.
Myself, I think time is a mental construct that helps us understand causal relationships.
I'm not arguing that events are not sequential, but I do think that if time exists, it is only a vapor trail left by the real cause of change.

[Erasmus00]

I would argue that the fact that time "flows" differently for different frames of reference implies some sort of objective reality of time.
-Will

[coberst]

Long, long ago, I took a course in physics at Oklahoma Agriculture and Mechanical College now called Oklahoma State University. That physics course defined speed to be equal to the distance traversed by an object in a unit of time. For the initiated that is s=d/t. It was assumed that distance and time were more primitive concepts than was motion.

I live in the mountains and often go hiking. On occasion some motion among all the other fluttering motions going on within my perception halts all activity, my pulse races, chills run down my back, and all my attention is focused upon a particular motion. Later I consciously analyze the situation and discover that that motion was similar to a dangerous motion as defined by my genes. We are hard-wired to respond to motion. I discover every time such an incident occurs that motion is number one and time is not supreme.

“What we call the domain of time appears to be a conceptual domain that we use for asking certain questions about events through our comparison to other events: where they are “located” relative to other events, how can they be measured relative to other events, and so on. What is literal and inherent about the conceptual domain of time is that it is characterized by the comparison of events.”

“This does not mean that we do not have an experience of time…What it means is that our real experience of time is dependent, is always relative to our real experience of events. It also means that our experience of time is dependent on or embodied conceptualization of time in terms of events. This is a major point: Experience does not always come prior to conceptualization, because conceptualization is itself embodied. Furthermore, it means that our experience of time is grounded in other experiences, the experience of events.”

What, if anything, is time ‘in itself’? I suspect no one can answer that question because such a thing, I guess, does not exist. We are able to talk of time only with metaphors.

Common linguistic expressions: “That’s all behind us now. Let’s put that in back of us now. We’re looking ahead to the future. He has a great future in front of of him.”

A Moving Time Metaphor: “There is a lone, stationary observer facing in a fixed direction. There is an indefinitely long sequence of objects moving past the observer from front to back. The moving objects are conceptualized as having fronts in their direction of motion.”

Common linguistic expressions: “There’s going to be trouble down the road. Will you be staying a long time or a short time. Let’s spread the conference over two weeks. We passed the deadline. I’ll be there in a minute.”

A Moving Observer Metaphor: “What we will encounter in the future is what we are moving towards. What we are encountering now is what we are moving by. What we encounter in the past is what we moved past.”

We see in these time metaphors a duality of figure and background reversals. In one metaphor time moves and the observer is stationary while in the other the observer moves and time is stationary. Such duality of figure-ground reversals is apparently common in human perception. “Object-location duality occurs for a simple reason: Many metaphorical mappings take a motion in space as a source domain. With motion in space, there is the possibility of reversing figure and ground.”

The quotes are from “Philosophy in the Flesh”.

[thunf]

time is just a word made up by humans... so really time doesnt exist, we just made it up. before us time didnt exist.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by thunf

time is just a word made up by humans... so really time doesnt exist, we just made it up. before us time didnt exist.

Oh so *that's* why life is so short and time flies! It's all happening at once!

Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?
Buffy

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, thunf.

Originally Posted by thunf

time is just a word made up by humans... so really time doesnt exist, we just made it up. before us time didnt exist.

But ... since “before” (and “after” and “concurrently”) describe points is time, time must have existed in order for there to have been a point in time before us when time didn’t exist yet.

You’ve a simple logical contradiction, thunf: A implies B and A implies not B.

[lawcat]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Welcome to hypography, thunf.

You’ve a simple logical contradiction, thunf: A implies B and A implies not B.

Not only that CragD, but what in the f**k did we make up "time" for, if it does not exist? What does "time" represent if it does not exist? Although Tormod's post #2 above was a bit harsh I agree with it.

[Ioes]

my personal view on the subject

time=motion

let's take a example two dimensional system where there exists only points a, b, c and d, would you say this system contains time(remember, nothing will move)?
|a--b--c--d|
then add motion to the system, lets say point b moves towards point c, would you now say the system contains time?
|a--b--c--d| -> |a---b-c--d| -> |a----bc--d|
if you answered no to the first and yes to the second this applies:
we can deduce that time is a property of matter created by motion and cannot exists without either one, therefore not a thing in itself.