Does time really exist?

[BERBURT]

This is just a thought

If u think about time, really what does one revolution on our planets axis=1 day
broken down into 24 hrs.
one revolution of our planet around the sun=1 year and 1/4 days
which isnt even perfect, have anything to do with the rest of the universe?

[sumdumguy]

yes.. time IS an illusion .. but our only reference.
I do think it is meaningless outside our context.

[Matty_Cross]

Maybe this site has something that will satisfy your question BERBURT...
Time Cube (http://www.timecube.com/)

[bluepnrc]

I think time is just a man's invention.

We get old just because we must allow space in earth for our 'sons' and the other species, but not for time.

In the end, time is an illusion we can believe. Then you're in the road to death

[Mankan]

Time is a most real thing. In fact, one could argue that for every n dimension there is an n+1 dimension that would be the time for that dimension.

If time didn't exist, everything would occur at the same time which it doesn't.

Time is a dimension though not a spatial one and as such it can only be traveled in one direction. In fact, the faster you go, the slower time passes and if you were to travel at the speed of light, time would stand still.

Just my two cents though, and maybe Einsteins ;)

[chsh]

The Theory of Relativity (Genereal & Special) say that time is, in essence, a counterpart of existence. The mere existence of matter (space) also requires the existence of time, which is why Einstein called it spacetime, not just space.

[gold eagle]

Time is real at least for objects and beings subject to it.

btw - chsh - why are you so happy?

[KorpDeath]

Well since the theory of relativity is man made then I would have to say time is man-made also. But necessary for our tiny minds to quantify existence.

[BERBURT]

in the posts that are here there are alot of things said but nothing proved.
I personally challenge anyone to prove or disprove the existance of time!

[chsh]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=219494#post457881) by KorpDeath
Well since the theory of relativity is man made then I would have to say time is man-made also. But necessary for our tiny minds to quantify existence.

KorpDeath> I disagree, simply because man observes something, it does not equate to man making something. For instance, we can observe trees, animals, plants, even other planets and solar systems. Simply because it exists and we've observed it and labeled it doesn't mean that we've created something. Time is an observable thing, not something we engineered.

BerBurt> as per your post, I would challenge you to do the same. Try reading some proofs and coming up with a valid argument.

Keep in mind that until you reach a certain speed, even Newton's outdated laws of physics apply. Newton based his comments on observation, as did Einstein. You could look at it the following way:
[Newton's Laws]->[Relativity]->[Quantum Mechanics]
----------------------------speed------------------------------>

Each theory/set of rules/whatever describes a certain amount of what happens to matter as it increases in speed and/or mass.

Newton was 100% correct in his laws of physics based on his observable universe. Einstein was correct with General Relativity based on his observable universe. The scientists working with Quantum Mechanics are discovering so far that portions of Quantum Mechanics are correct (such as FTL).

I would challenge you to disprove time, as it is something that most, if not all scientists would agree exists.

Perhaps you are merely annoyed because your question was answered and you don't like the answer?

[KorpDeath]

You know what I meant. SHEESH.... Man creates nothing. But we do add language to concepts and basically what I was saying is that time is a man-observed concept. (better?) No other animals observe time. picky... picky... picky...

[BERBURT]

ok so what ur sayin is thgat as u approach the speed of light time stops or slows down
well how are u gonna explain tha to a person who is experiencing it because they are aware of evey thing around them as fas as they know time is sill going
the can count cant they?
oh i know they look down at their watch and see the hands arent moving right ?
here it is, time only exists to those who are aware!


oh and as far as quantum mechanics newtons laws do not and i repeat DO NOT APPLY!
if u were to look at an atom and observe its electrons you would see that the electrons
do not obey them. have you heard of the quantum leap?
the electrons do not follow a specific path and appear and reappear in totalt different places
so CHSH before u talk about thing, know what ur talkin about
Im out

[chsh]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=219494#post457975) by BERBURT
ok so what ur sayin is thgat as u approach the speed of light time stops or slows down

No... I wonder where you came up with that idea from what I said....
Even still, it is possible, depending on which frame of reference you're discussing.


well how are u gonna explain tha to a person who is experiencing it because they are aware of evey thing around them as fas as they know time is sill going
the can count cant they?
oh i know they look down at their watch and see the hands arent moving right ? here it is, time only exists to those who are aware!

What does this have to do with anything tht was said?

oh and as far as quantum mechanics newtons laws do not and i repeat DO NOT APPLY! if u were to look at an atom and observe its electrons you would see that the electrons do not obey them. have you heard of the quantum leap?
the electrons do not follow a specific path and appear and reappear in totalt different places
so CHSH before u talk about thing, know what ur talkin about
Im out

LOL! Perhaps you should try reading what I wrote. I did not state that Newton's laws described a universal truth, I merely said that it is applicable and functional up to a point. Perhaps reading and making an attempt to understand my post would have been a good thing to do before posting a reply to something I didn't say.

KorpDeath wrote:
You know what I meant. SHEESH.... Man creates nothing. But we do add language to concepts and basically what I was saying is that time is a man-observed concept. (better?) No other animals observe time. picky... picky... picky...

Actually, I didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have said what I did.

[BERBURT]

well chsh when u speak of the thoery of reletivity thats what ur sayin
about how time slows or stops we cant really say can we and
just because mr einstien says so doesnt convince me
personally how can one think to reach the speed of light with our fragile bodies anyway?
and when u speak of newton u are speaking of laws that do not apply in all cases
in using these two people as an example u support their observations.

[Mankan]

First of all, when discussing physics it is rather useless to ask for proofs as there aren't any.
Physics doesn't deal with prooving stuff. They merly form a theory out of an hypothesis thru repeted experiements.

The thing is this. Einsteings general theory of realativity seems to work out. For it to work out, there can be no thing faster than light.

If light speed is a constant and one approaches that speed the time must slow down so that it will take you longer time to accelerate, in which case time slows a bit more in a Zenons paradoxial sort of way. Were you ever to travel at the samt speed as light, time would stand still.
Which by the way makes you wonder once again about Zenon and his arrow as this would be the infinitesimal slice of movement and thus, the arrow would be at rest?

Time is the dimention in which we are moving all the time. If time weren't everything would occur at the same time. Is this not "proof" enough for you.

Cheers,

[chsh]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=219494#post458183) by BERBURT
well chsh when u speak of the thoery of reletivity thats what ur sayin
about how time slows or stops we cant really say can we and
just because mr einstien says so doesnt convince me

First of all, you are incorrectly stating what the theory of relativity states, showing your lack of understanding of it. The theory of Relativity states that from a specific frame of reference, time appears to have stopped. Whether or not it actually does is an entirely different matter, which I don't think Einstein ever postulated.

Berburt, it's fantastic that just because someone says so it won't convince you. What should to convince you is the piles and piles of proof that back up Relativity.
I'd recommend you read the General Relativity FAQ at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~physics/sci.physics/faq/relativity.html

personally how can one think to reach the speed of light with our fragile bodies anyway? and when u speak of newton u are speaking of laws that do not apply in all cases
in using these two people as an example u support their observations.

Right, but you are still not hearing what I'm saying. I'm saying that Newton's laws, while flawed at points, still function in low speed environments. In a low-speed environment, Newton's laws are just as effective as general relativity at describing how the universe functions.

Yes, I do support their observations because I have made similar observations as both Newton and Einstein did. I have observed that certain things they've said are correct and do indeed make sense. So have many many scientists, otherwise nobody would believe Einstein was correct.

[ZeroOne]

I once read a novel called "Einstein's dreams", by Alan Lightman. Find more information & synopsis about the novel at http://www.english.uwosh.edu/einstein/sitemap.html . This fascinating novel speculates & pores over what would world be like if time existed in some different forms - quite hard to explain, you have to read it yourself...

[BERBURT]

If time weren't everything would occur at the same time. Is this not "proof" enough for you.

looking at this is not proof enough, how could one comprehend if things happened at the same time they just may be.... your life... my life for example is happening at the same time we just have different views and a different comprehention of time.

and u must expand on this statement before i can draw a conclusion

Time is the dimention in which we are moving all the time.

what the hell does that mean
if u were in a state of "no time" how would u be aware, and dont u think u would still have a sense of time?
of course u would nature has programed u to do so
but with this sense.

heres one more to think about
Dont u find it hard to take that for 8 hours or so , however long u normaly sleep
you practically dont exist.
no reason no ability to think nothing to separate u from the next sleeping person from the next besides the way u look?

[Mankan]

looking at this is not proof enough, how could one comprehend if things happened at the same time they just may be.... your life... my life for example is happening at the same time we just have different views and a different comprehention of time.

But Berburt, I *write* this answer because you have *written* a post. Everything that happens around us is a matter of action and consequence. Everything.

what the hell does that mean if u were in a state of "no time" how would u be aware, and dont u think u would still have a sense of time?
of course u would nature has programed u to do so
but with this sense.

You can travel in three spatial dimensions. Up-Down, Forward-Backward and Left-Right. These are our three dimensions. Time would be, in our case, a fourth dimension. But in time, we can only move forward or whatever you want to call the direction. We do so at a constant speed all the time and we can't do anything about it. This is what I mean.

Concerning whether we'd be aware of disruptions in the time-space continuum it has been argued that if I were to travel at the speed of light everything would appeard normal for me but for those who watched me *my* time would stand still. Ie, when I leave the fast-traveling maching, I wont have aged as much as my friends who watched me.

This is really nothing to argue about since it can be proved and comprehended with very easy metaphors.

I recommend you to read the book "The elegant universe" by Brian Green.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375708111
which explains this in detail. It is also a very interesting discussion of wheter quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity can be joined with the help of string theory.

For a most comprehensive discussion on n-dimensions, time and space I'd recommend "Flatterland" by Ian Steward. The book is sort of based on Flatland by Abbot.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738204420

Thanks for a most interesting discussion,

[ZeroOne]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=219494#post459149) by Mankan
But Berburt, I *write* this answer because you have *written* a post. Everything that happens around us is a matter of action and consequence. Everything.



Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to
happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again,
happens again.

It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.


I just love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... :D

[Dhej]

Time is relative; I am an Objectivist. Thus I reject time as being subjective and contrary to my beliefs.

I am not an Objectivist, but that is a fun play on words.

Many things depend on time in order to work . . . Computers, without intricate timings these demons of electrons would not be able to do what they do, otherwise, bits would be both on and off at the same time.
Music would be one cord, Black Dog would be indistinguishable from hmm, One Armed Scissor... Talking would be well unintelligible, to the listener . . .

But . . . we perceive time. Time is sensed. If one takes acid (and I in no way condone the use of any mind altering chemical), ones perception of time is, well screwed. When someone speaks to you, it either is really fast and all a jumble of words, or it is really slow and sounds like a slow record. Music is well "trippy". All things are misperceived.
Time as a concept, is arbitrary. We base our time off of the rotations of the earth, and the orbit of the earth around the sun. Though we could base our time off of the degradation of a certain isotope, or the cycle of crops, or from when we eventually wake up until we eventually go to bed. Or from birth to death. But time is always compared to something. (Even if one was thrown into a sensory deprivation chamber, one would be able to compare time to their pulse, to a certain extent, but it would be an internal time, and wouldn't compare to outside time)

The problem lies here: Our concept of time is relative to something we arbitrarily designate as a comparator. Only "aware" beings perceive time; dogs don't, giraffes don't, inebriated individuals don't.

For time to exist, we have to know about it. Otherwise, we wouldn't know that it existed, so it wouldn't exist. As the universe didn't exist until we knew it existed, until that point, it was stars painted on a dome, or something like that. But, someone in that age would not say that there is a universe outside of our planet, as there wasn't one; it was gods.

But as we know about it, and believe time to exist, who is to say we aren't mistaken?

Think about this. Is the past "real"? Is the future "real"? No! Both are but concepts. We could have been placed here 3 seconds ago by some divine being with all of our memories in place, and we wouldn't know it. And so, for us, that reality of us being placed here would not "exist" (sorry that is loosely applicable).
Thus, the only thing to be real is Now. So everything does happen at once. Because everything outside of our perception could be fabrication, so the only things actually happening are those perceived.

But, (and this is a big "but") we perceive things only as fast as they can get to us. Images are transmitted to our eyes as fast as light can travel, but then are delayed by our nerves, and then we have to process that information, so already it is old data. So we are in effect living in the past, but we don't perceive this lag (though an example is the test of dropping a ruler between your fingers and catching it, to see how far it traveled before you caught it). So even our Now is the Past.

Ok, so, yah. Hmm. Never mind. We have to, in our society, assume that time is real, otherwise, we would all get run over by buses that may or may not be on time, and we would go to work sometime, and eat sometime, and travel on highways not built yet. But who is to say we aren't mistaken? After all, all things are one thing, and if everything is the same thing, then there cannot be movement, and without movement, there cannot be time.

Phew, sorry, I got bored and rambly.
Cheers,
dhej
(Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy rocks!)

[Mankan]

We could have been placed here 3 seconds ago by some divine being with all of our memories in place, and we wouldn't know it. And so, for us, that reality of us being placed here would not "exist"

Dang. What is the matrix? ;)