Does time really exist?

[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?