What is time?

[InfiniteNow]

Here's a clip from Carl Sagan that I always found to resonate. It will likely open in RealPlayer or similar:

http://media.pbs.org/ramgen/wgbh/nova/time/sagan01.rm



I first encountered it while watching a special on NOVA about Time Travel:

NOVA Online | Time Travel

[steve 9]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

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.

Lets take a heartbeat. A heartbeat is a motion of an object, this motion can be percieved by sight, sound or felt through touch. We can time the intervals of this motion with a clock. Now we have a time for that event. Time did not cause the heart to beat, it was not essential for the process.

When a group of people watch a motion of a object and all of them time this event with a clock, then they will have an idea how long the event took, but they are going to base this idea on what the clock read, they have the idea that time passed because of a motion of an object.

Time is actually a consideration based on our perception of the movement of objects. There is a distance, there is a velocity of the objects travel, and that movement of that object or particle in relationship to its starting point and in relationship to its ending point is what gives us the idea of time. Time is a manifestation which has no existence beyond the idea of time brought about by the motion of objects, where an object may be either energy or matter. Time is not a thing that flows. Time does not move or cause things to move. It is this perception of motion which gives us the idea of time.

[steve 9]

Originally Posted by 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.”

O.K. Lets have some fun with this. First of all, I am not going to get into the whole process of what goes into the decisions that make up the definitions of a dictionary, but I can say that definitions are the agreed upon definitions that make up our understanding of terms. I really do not think that the oxford dictionary is sloppy or inaccurate in it's definitions. You may not agree with the definition of time, but that does not mean that it is the dictionary that is wrong. Anyway, if you are going to change the standard definitions of terms to support an argument or point and call that scientific, well, just imagine the door that would open up when we can all have OUR OWN definitions according to how we think that they should be.

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.

The question here is, even though you stopped all existence you say that there is still a road, still existing. Not only that but this road will have duration because it will continue to exist. If there is a road the road is existing from one moment to the next and thus the idea of time. Remember that the road is made of moving electrons. Also, what is this road resting on? I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. This mental exercise that you have put forth is quite a stretch since you have not stated how one would 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?

Alright, so what is your answer to the nature of time. You mentioned that space, time(which is a manifestation of motion/change) ,matter and energy as being fundamental elements to physics. We can agree that matter and energy are real physical things as defined in a dictionary. So what would you say time is, a physical thing or a consideration? I would like to include space in this question but I do not want to get too far off topic. I would rather cover the topic of time here and if need be start another thread on space, O.K.

So time, do you think it exists as a physical thing or a consideration (idea).

For anyone who wants to say that ideas are also physical too, fine I will not disagree. I would then ask you if time is a naturally occurring physical thing or the concept of man.


Thank You.

steve 9

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by steve 9

So time, do you think it exists as a physical thing or a consideration (idea).

Both.

[InfiniteNow]

Even moreso, freez... It's a false dichotomy.

It's like he's asking, "A banana. Is it a rock or a hot air balloon? Simple question."

Rubbish.

[Kayra]

Wow....
I think I had to many coffees yesterday.

Never post on a caffeine high.
Even I do not know what I was asking.

[HydrogenBond]

What should have dispelled the philosophical time myth is relativity. In the simple situation of one stationary and one moving reference, the two references have two different flows of time relative to each reference. For example, people moving near C appear to experience just a normal flow of time in their space-ship. But to us, here on the earth, we see their time appearing to slow down. Time as a thing makes more sense, since the energy input within the moving reference creates more time potential. It will take longer to use it up making the moving reference last longer.

One way to look at it, is the idea of time potential gives us an explanation that takes about two sentences to achieve and close the deal. The alternative is a very long winded explanation that still leaves doubt after it has all been said. Common sense says simplicity is closer to the truth. An illusion require much more double talk to create the proper abstract ambience.

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Time has no independent conceptual meaning without a contextual opposite.

The Singularity is a point that has no conceptual meaning without its contextual opposite.

The Time-singularity create an oscillation that manifest as the wave-partial duality, from this archetypal duality all other dualities manifest. Past-Future, Positive-Negative, Male-Female, Up-Down, Birth-Death, and so on.

No comments on this post...

[LaurieAG]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

There is, admittedly, a challenge with this, since the very concept of duration requires an idea of time a priori.)

Wiki goes into this circularity of definition and talks about the units of time.

The official SI definition of the second is as follows:

The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.

At its 1997 meeting, the CIPM affirmed that this definition refers to a caesium atom in its ground state at a temperature of 0 K. Previous to 1967, the second was defined as:

the fraction 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year for 1900 January 0 at 12 hours ephemeris time.

The current definition of the second, coupled with the current definition of the metre, is based on the special theory of relativity, which affirms our space-time to be a Minkowski space.

Hmm, I didn't think we could currently get to 0 degrees K or an absolute vacuum?

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by LaurieAG

Hmm, I didn't think we could currently get to 0 degrees K or an absolute vacuum?

We cannot, but we can get really really really (did I say, really?) damned close.