What is time?

[arkain101]

yes, since if time was in a linear 1 universe scale. People from the infinite future would be showing up all the time. Rouge travelers would come back and warn people of things and all kinds of wacky strange stuff. So yes time may not be reversable but maybe there is somewhere you can go to live in reverse time eventually becoming a baby, going back into the womb and dissapearing. lol

[Doctordick]

Originally Posted by Little Bang

The photon has no future only a past.

In it's own frame (which is where you must be if you are going to see things from the photon's perspective), it doesn't even have a past!

Originally Posted by hallenrm

We all agree that atoms exist, electrons exist and so on ...

Then you would say that the question of existence is a state determined by belief? That means the gods exist; at least for the people who believe it!

Originally Posted by arkain101

what if you could go back in time?

Ok, let's look at that from your perspective. For the sake of argument, suppose you have a personal time machine (let it be that car from "Back to the Future"). Now, exactly what do you mean by going back in time? Don't you mean that the events you experience are those which you previously attributed to the past? That is, you re-experience (somewhat altered perhaps) events you have already experienced or at least thought that others had experienced? Aren't these just new events to you? It seems to me that you simply continue to experience new events! Every morning, I experience the sun rising again and events proceeding slightly different from the way they did the last time I woke up. Perhaps, from your perspective of my experiences, I am just reliving the same day?

It is exactly that perspective which led me to the conclusion that "the past is what you know", "the future is what you don't know" and the present is "the event of learning new things". I suppose you guys are all much more brilliant than I am but I really do wish you would explain to me why you find my definition of time so implausible.

Originally Posted by arkain101

People from the infinite future would be showing up all the time.

But isn't that exactly what happens as you walk down the street? Wasn't the event (of meeting those people) in the future before you met them.

Originally Posted by arkain101

... travelers would come back and warn people of things and all kinds of wacky strange stuff.

Gee, from my admittedly mundane experiences, the world seems to be chock full of people warning us of wacky strange stuff.

Someone, anyone, please explain to me why "time" is something other than a personal parameter describing the order of our growth in information. I cannot understand why you all think that your that your personal comprehension of time (that diary of experiences you have constructed) must map faithfully over all of the supposed experiences of others. That very concept implies the existence of a universal time which is a direct contradiction of experiment. As I see it, the concept "time" only makes sense as a personal organizational parameter of our experiences. Please, persuade me that I am wrong.

Have fun -- Dick

I think a lot of people who think they think don't think at all.

[ughaibu]

A point that puzzles me with regard to Milton Erickson's experiments with hypnotically distorted perception of time, is whether or not the time is later "balanced" by some means, for example, extended sleep. If not, what determines the person's habitual speed of perception? Is it a direct consequence of attention?

[Little Bang]

Doc, if a photon were created by a star say ten million light years away and at the time of it's creation it had a clock on it that we could observe. When the photon was created the clock read exactly 10:30 AM. When the photon arrives at Earth I look at it's clock and it will read exactly 10:30 AM. To me this implies that every possible event that this photon can be involved in happens instantly, relative to the photon. Hence my statement, the photon has no future, only a past.

BTW Doc, your description of time is a good explanation of how we view time.

[arkain101]

I cannot understand why you all think that your that your personal comprehension of time (that diary of experiences you have constructed) must map faithfully over all of the supposed experiences of others. That very concept implies the existence of a universal time which is a direct contradiction of experiment. As I see it, the concept "time" only makes sense as a personal organizational parameter of our experiences. Please, persuade me that I am wrong

There are a few reasons.

According to some science theory time is a dimension that existence resides within.

Anything that experiences time, changes. Anything that experiences time has mass. Anything that experiences time is mattter and has gravity.

ANything that does not experience time does not change. It does not have mass. It is only energy, and it travels at an apparent constant to all other things that experience time.

This in my own opinion causes me to conclude time has a singularity point of zero time flow and a rest velocity time flow (which is faster and what we seem to experience in respect to considering the theory of relativity), relative and related to the constant of C and other constants found in nature.

If this is true the zero-point-field , or zero-point is the posistion of light and the dimension visual of where frozen time is in a 3d manner.

This is where time becomes a topic of confusing explanation.
There are different ways to refering to time.

Time is a thing we feel in our consciousness.

but in a scientific theory it is also a dimension that affects the workings of the universe.

The grand answer lies in answering,

Is the velocity of light REALLY a constant?

Is time dialtion truly a correct explanation of calculations made in special relativity and test data, or a phenomina explained with different reasons and logic?

And a few more obviously.

I believe there could be an interesting equation written from the observations I made before that. Light does not experience a flow in time (in its internal workings) and matter does. Which results in mass and no mass, change and no change. Something very useful if not already considered, lies in there.

[GreekTTC]

Time is the human's countdown to death.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by arkain101

There are a few reasons. …

An interesting, thoughtful, and philosophical perspective. I’m especially intrigued by the observation that rest mass-less bosons (photons and gluons) can be considered not to experience the passage of time.

I think I’m mostly in agreement, but for a couple of detailed points…

Time is a thing we feel in our consciousness.

Despite being the focus of intense interest for centuries, especially in decade around 1980, consciousness is a term that eludes useful scientific definition. Although I have high expectations that the physical phenomena associated with consciousness – complex behaviour, symbol use, etc – will eventually be explained by Physics, I have strong doubts that the metaphysical concept to which the term refers will prove of any scientific worth. I suspect it is a semantic null, a term referring to nothing real.

Is time dialtion truly a correct explanation of calculations made in special relativity and test data, or a phenomina explained with different reasons and logic?

I’m unclear what this question is asking. The idea that rest mass-less bosons don’t experience the passage of time is a consequence of the formalism of SR of which time dilation is a part, making any answer to the question other than “yes” contradictory to that premise.

Light does not experience a flow in time (in its internal workings)

This qualification of “experiencing a flow of time” relating to “internal workings” is troubled. Photons don’t obey the Pauli exclusion principle, a consequence of which is that, although they can modify one another’s interaction with fermions (eg: patterns of constructive and destructive interference on photographic film), they can’t effect one another. As “internal workings” implies some sort of causation, we can say that photons don’t have internal workings.

I suspect I’m saying the same thing arkain is here, just finding flaws with his language, but think it important to avoid any intuitive feeling that a bosons is some sort of complex collection of particles, rather than a single fundamental, indivisible particle.

Following the path of contemplating the lack of interaction between the rest mass-less bosons of the standard model leads to one of the great stumbling blocks opposing efforts to include gravity in the model to produce a theory of quantum gravity – according to General Relativity, gravity does interact with a photon, changing its quantum state in a fashion reminiscent of a photon changing the state of an electron or quark. Fitting the graviton into the standard model feels troubled and intuitively awkward.

[hallenrm]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

.......Someone, anyone, please explain to me why "time" is something other than a personal parameter describing the order of our growth in information. I cannot understand why you all think that your that your personal comprehension of time (that diary of experiences you have constructed) must map faithfully over all of the supposed experiences of others. That very concept implies the existence of a universal time which is a direct contradiction of experiment. As I see it, the concept "time" only makes sense as a personal organizational parameter of our experiences. Please, persuade me that I am wrong.
I think a lot of people who think they think don't think at all.

Well, let me try Doc!, Well agreed for many perceptions, time can be personal, but definetly not for all.

What about the time, that enters the phrases like fast and slow. We often talk about speeds, and the time essential for certain processes, say a heartbeat, they are not personal perceptions; they are perceptions of a very large number of people. They are often part of the mass consiousness.

Personal time scales are O. K. for some experiences, definetly not all!!

Think about it!

[jpittelo]

What if we say : if a physical quantity that only increases, then it's time ?

[Jehu]

What is Time?

The Oxford Dictionary defines time as “the indefinite and continuous duration of experience seen as a series of events progressing from the past through the present into the future.”

This definition has , however, one critical flaw, for the use of the term “duration” injects a element of circularity, for a duration is a time. I would propose that we substitute the term “flow” as its expresses the necessary quality, but without the circularity. Time then, is “the indefinite and continuous flow of experience seen as a series of events progressing from the past through the present into the future.”

This definition may now be broken into two distinct propositions, one defining time itself, and the other defining the appearance of time:

(1) Time is the indefinite and continuous flow of experience, and
(2) Time appears to be a series of events progressing from the past through the present into the future.

Let us begin with the second definition. Imagine that you set out on a road trip and at some instant you were able to stop the flow of all existence. At that point, there would be only the road that you have already traveled and the road which you have not yet traveled, and there would be no other road in between. The past and the present, like the two roads, meet in the instant that is the present. Thus the present is only a gate or portal between that which is no longer and that which is not yet. This portal or instant that we call the “present”, has no temporal extent, and so no event may take place there, for any event, however brief, must have a duration. Now, an event cannot take place in the past, for the past no longer exists, and it cannot take place in the future, for the future does not yet exist, and it cannot take place in the present, for there is not enough time. Consequently, that which we see as a series of events progressing from the past through the present into the future, is merely an appearance, an illusion.

This brings us back to definition number one, “Time is the indefinite and continuous flow of experience.” This brings us to the question of experience. To experience is to be aware of or acquainted with some thing, that is to say, some idea, feeling, object, property, or activity. However, at this point, we can no longer pursue time as an independent “thing”, but must consider it as one of the five fundamental and interdependent elements of physics: space, time, matter, energy, and motion/change. In which case, the question “what is time” expands to become “what is reality”.

Would anyone care to enquire further along these lines?