What is time?

[Southtown]

Well, subjective time is quite interesting, but I like to call it "black-hole logic", which is reasoning without context. Occasionally, logic tries to undercut itself by attacking its context. Consider a heart without a body, what blood does it pump, and why?

If everything is so dependent on our observing it, then psychology is the only science, and I'm only talking about this with myself, because its my perception of time that allows others to listen.

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by dasraiser

I believe that time is the measured distance between a chain of physical events, and with this in mind, I've a simple observational experiment.

I see the world around me though my eyes in an XY plane with a 3rd perception of depth or time: depth being the measurement of me to the object and time being the physical properties the actual event take to reach me ,ie the time light from a bulb or sound from my speakers take to reach me.

Conscious observations of time would in the same sense be the memory's of "living in the moment", but measured as a sequence of remembered events spanning a period of time.

I agree. I disregard percetion as anything more than a physical effect caused by the real environment. It doesn't govern anything physical except the choices I make.

Time is the total sum of causality from the beginning to entropy at the speed of light.

[Kriminal99]

Originally Posted by CraigD

My claim is not conditional. I’m saying “time exists separate from perception”, no “ifs”.

Also, I’m trying to make the statement using fundamental physical terms and concepts, steering clear of “softer”, more philosophical concepts such as “perception”. My semantic “leaps of faith” are limited to the implication that information processing is a prerequisite for perception – not an unreasonable assumption, I think.I wanted to more explicitly define what is meant by a “clock”. To wit, by implication, in the context of my thought experiment: a clock is any formal system with a term labeled “time”.I think there is, though not currently by means of a realization of my thought experiment – creating new universes is a bit beyond the current state of the experimental art!

A quantum computer depend explicitly on isolation from interaction with – that is, perception by – outside observers of either a human or mechanical kind. It is, for a short interval of time, like a single particle in my thought experiment, unable to exchange bosons in a significant way with anything outside of itself. If time ceased to exist in the absence of perception, then the quantum state of a quantum computer would be identical at the end of its run to at its beginning, and it would compute nothing. Yet, though quantum computers are still in their infancy, and not yet able to perform very useful computations (a few qubits, able to, for example, factor 15 into 3 * 5 – see this 2001 IBM research article - is the current state of the art, and further progress is proving difficult) they actually do appear to work.See above. Despite the need to observe the state of a quantum computer after its run to know the result of its computation, the actual computation can only have occurred if the passage of time within the quantum computer was not observed. So, I would say, the measurement of the passage of time is dependent both on my observations and on the clock’s external existence.

The leap of faith is that the clock exists outside of your mind, and yes thats the same definition of clock I was using. (which is why I thought it was simpler than the whole alternative physics universe)

The disagreement here is very fundamental and one that I am not sure you know we are having. When you talk about any "clock" you are percieving a time when it started and a time when it finished regardless of how the "clock" is realized. You are basically saying "But if the clock exists outside of our mind, there is are identifiable seperate events which are there regardless of if there is anyone to percieve them", and I am asking how to prove the clock exists outside your mind. But beyond this I am asking how to prove that our concept of time is not perception dependent if it is impossible to prove that there is some time keeping system in existence regardless of if there is a human to see the "ticks" of the "clock" .

[dasraiser]

hi southtown

Originally Posted by Southtown
I disregard percetion as anything more than a physical effect caused by the real environment. It doesn't govern anything physical except the choices I make.

I don't quite understand what you are saying. Memory by definition is that which is stored, and that which has happened, not that which is about to happen, unless its a premonition, but again the observation of such will be already in the past.

Originally posted by Kriminal99
"But if the clock exists outside of our mind, there is are identifiable seperate events which are there regardless of if there is anyone to percieve them", and I am asking how to prove the clock exists outside your mind. But beyond this I am asking how to prove that our concept of time is not perception dependent if it is impossible to prove that there is some time keeping system in existence regardless of if there is a human to see the "ticks" of the "clock" .

I guess that when i was born, i was born into a developed world, which would have taken time to create (unless i believe i'm special in some way ). This is about the only thing i can think of at the mo. It's a bit like saying to some degree, what is a meter length if i can't compare it to a scale outside our universe.

regards

dasraiser

[Bio-Hazard]

This is time...

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Kriminal99

...and I am asking how to prove the clock exists outside your mind. But beyond this I am asking how to prove that our concept of time is not perception dependent if it is impossible to prove that there is some time keeping system in existence regardless of if there is a human to see the "ticks" of the "clock".

Both dasraiser's and Bio-Hazard's responses hint to what CraigD and I were saying. It's not as simple as "time existing only in our minds". Bio-Hazard's cool link to the USNO reminds me that atomic clocks count the oscillations of atoms, which we the observers are made of. And dasraiser noted that the world had to exist before s/he could exist.

This is why I say that logic defeats itself here. Because the observer has to first exist physically in order to observe time, or anything else. Any hypotheses disregarding external time should realistically provide an alternative mechanism for (non-physical) consciousness.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Kriminal99

The leap of faith is that the clock exists outside of your mind, and yes thats the same definition of clock I was using. (which is why I thought it was simpler than the whole alternative physics universe)

The disagreement here is very fundamental and one that I am not sure you know we are having.

I recognize this fundamental disagreement, one which I believe is generally termed “materialism vs. phenomenalism”, a disagreement that has resisted resolution for at least 300, probably more like 3000, years. Even the wikipedia article I link to is under dispute by adherents on either side of the disagreement.

My materialistic worldview is not the result of having personally resolved the phenomenalism conundrum, but the conclusion that it’s simply impractical to apply mathematical formalism, a thing that gives me great pleasure, to the outside world – in other words, to do Science – without such a worldview. Please don’t think me disparaging of other worldviews.

I think writer/director John Carpenter put it eloquently this bit of script from his low-budget 1974 movie “Dark Star”. The full script has several more delightful philosophy nuggets from this (IMHO) much overlooked and forgotten film.

[Southtown]

Yet another place to insert Synergetics. (hehe) I think the introductory sections apply directly to a subjective time scenario.

http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synerg...s01/p0000.html

[Kriminal99]

Originally Posted by Southtown

Both dasraiser's and Bio-Hazard's responses hint to what CraigD and I were saying. It's not as simple as "time existing only in our minds". Bio-Hazard's cool link to the USNO reminds me that atomic clocks count the oscillations of atoms, which we the observers are made of. And dasraiser noted that the world had to exist before s/he could exist.

This is why I say that logic defeats itself here. Because the observer has to first exist physically in order to observe time, or anything else. Any hypotheses disregarding external time should realistically provide an alternative mechanism for (non-physical) consciousness.

Have you ever heard the "brain in a vat" argument, or read descartes (or other philosophers), or seen the matrix, or had a dream for that matter? Its kinda funny, because you have to use things we have experienced in the existence we are doubting as a metaphor for what might be happening outside of our sense perceptions, but the idea is that everything you experience could just be an illusion caused by your subconsious mind (if you are dreaming right now) or some vr program hooked up with wires to a disembodied brain in a vat or by anything really.

You could wake up to find that the "real" universe really has physics completely different than what existed in the "VR world" that we are currently experiencing. Apply any of your arguments to this situation. Do any of them still address the concern? No.

As for "realistically provide an alternative", the problem here is that what is a "realistic alternative" is not something that you or anyone else is really capable of judging due to a similar argument as I am using regarding the "time is a function of perception issue". Why? Well lets single out the Virtual Reality version and try your reasoning on it. Is that realistic? You might say "No thats not realistic, because noone knows how to interact with the mind that way etc". But then oh yeah... Thats in the world we are experiencing now... In fact ALL of your reasoning and intuition is based on the world you are experiencing now. Therefore it is impossible for you to determine if any alternative explanation is "realistic" or not. How can you tell what is "realistic" if you don't know what is "real"?

Eventually philosophers just realized it doesn't do anything bad to accept that we don't know if everything we experience is "real" (although not all of them were comfortable of wording it that way)... We still can do nothing but accept what we are experiencing until we are given any reason (and option) to do otherwise. In fact since our concept of real is dependent on everything we experience, we might as well define real to mean what we experience regardless of if it is just a VR program or not. We might as well define everything we believe as being dependent on our sense experience. Think of it as recognizing assumptions.

Recognizing that time is dependent on perception follows the same type of reasoning. If something were to alter the order in which we percieve events, it would alter our conception of time.

Originally Posted by CraigD

I recognize this fundamental disagreement, one which I believe is generally termed “materialism vs. phenomenalism”, a disagreement that has resisted resolution for at least 300, probably more like 3000, years. Even the wikipedia article I link to is under dispute by adherents on either side of the disagreement.

My materialistic worldview is not the result of having personally resolved the phenomenalism conundrum, but the conclusion that it’s simply impractical to apply mathematical formalism, a thing that gives me great pleasure, to the outside world – in other words, to do Science – without such a worldview. Please don’t think me disparaging of other worldviews.

I think writer/director John Carpenter put it eloquently this bit of script from his low-budget 1974 movie “Dark Star”. The full script has several more delightful philosophy nuggets from this (IMHO) much overlooked and forgotten film.

I don't know if I could be classified as either side on this argument. My problem with phenomenalism is pretty much outlined above your quote in this post... if nothing is real that we experience then what would we do hide in a pitch black closet and bob our head up and down saying "iTs... nOt.... rEaL!!! heh.. HA ... hahHAHAHA"? Instead why not just recognize everything as dependent on our sense experience being "real" or not...

But recognizing that dependence is still important IMO. Is time dependent on our perception of events? Well YEAH because every idea we ever have is dependent on our perception. But is this signifigant in any situation other than one where we are being decieved about everything we percieve? Yes.. Lets say you want to just define time as the order in which events occur, No perception involved. Well what if something alters the order in which you percieve events? Your perception of time is all messed up. Everything about the world might be real, but this is still the case.

[goku]

time is a flow of energy, a journey from beginning to end