Does time exist?

[Raptor]

This will be kind of hard for me to explain, but this is something I have been thinking about for a few weeks now; is it possible that time doesnt exist? What I mean is it possible that everything in 'time' just goes from A to B etc, and once you're at B, A is no longer in existence.

I dont know if anyone knows what Im getting at but I cant think of any way to explain. I cant think of any possible way to come up with an answer to this, so I guess its just something for you guys to think about.

Edited May 20, 2005 by T-Nemesis

[101]

Time exists but in fact it goes away and all we have is history or memories of that point in time. But I wish we could go back in time and do it again sometimes. Because I often only do things once and never gert the chance again.

[Irish Rhinocerish]

I also have wondered much if time actually existed. Could it be just a thing created by the human mind because we cannot comprehend something that doesn't have a beggining or an end?

[Amalgamut]

I think the same question arises when you ask "do my thoughts exists."

Yes, they do but there is no way to prove it.

Like, there is no way to prove I am thinking about a color right now.

I think thats kinda like what time is. Its there, but its not.

[Lady]

Personally, i reckon time is a human concept. Cos if we weren't here time wouldn't exist as a separate entity. Also, why is an hour 60mins? Why not a hundred or a thousand? time is jst a way for us to keep track of wot's goin on.

[BurnSide]

Keeping track of time, such as labeling it etc, is human.

But time itself is movement. If humans were not here, the world would still spin and the sun would still burn, effectively moving forward, in time.

Without time nothing would move, everything would be stuck frozen solid.

It took me about a minute of moving forward in time to post this.

[Lady]

yeh, but ur assuming that there's something out there that can measure time apart from us! How do you know u jst moved forwards about a minute? u might not have gone anywhere or u might have moved forward about a century...

[BurnSide]

Eh?

We don't need to measure time at all. We just do, for convienceance. So we know how old we are, and when the sun will set, etc.

For thousands of years humans lived on the planet with no measurement of time. Just like animals do now. They still moved, therefore time still ticked.

Edited May 20, 2005 by BurnSide

[Lady]

we're talkin about time as a concept, aren't we? so wot ur sayin is true, of course we move forwards and we have body clocks and animals will carry on moving BUT ur askin wot is time and i'm sayin its a human thing and we define time as minutes and hours etc. So, essentially time doesn't exist only motion through the universe does, see?

[Irish Rhinocerish]

Also your assuming that that there is a beggining or an end, which is easy for our minds to comprehend, but think of it as a cylce that our minds cannot interpret.

[Lady]

Gd point! Definitely agree with that one. i reckon its all probably a big circle, so really we aren't moving anywhere at all.

[BurnSide]

Time doesn't have a beginning or an end.

Time as a concept is of course created by man. Trees didn't make it, man did, being the only creature able of intelligent thought, as far as we are aware. No one is arguing with that.

My point is, if time was never named, it would still exist. Something does need a name or human experience to exist. We know it exists because we experience it, constantly, every moment of everyday.

[Lady]

I see wot ur sayin, but still wot u say we're experiencing doesn't necessarily hav to be time. I mean, when ur dreamin time isn't the same then is it? Yes it still moves forwards while ur asleep, but in ur dreams time cud hav a completely different scale and relevance.

[BurnSide]

In sleep time passes exactly as it always passes. Just because you're imagining things does not mean the speed of time has changed.

Time is the only constant there is in the whole universe. It always travels, never ending, and always at the same speed.

[ai_guardian]

Time does exist but our understanding of it has been somewhat glorified. We've elevated it to 'dimension' status when in fact all time is to put simply and succintly - CHANGE. How fast something is changing (ie. how fast time appears to flow) is relative to your frame of reference (GR/SR) - blends in just nicely.

Now unless everything in the universe reaches absolute 0K (-273.15Celsius) there will always be change (time). I can hear you saying 'what if space was empty I can imagine time flowing ?' - well since it is empty you cannot put yourself there to observe it (paradox) - and if you do then change (time) will occur IN THE OBSERVER (for a split second) until you freeze to 0K.

My view on time has been that just like change it is continuous - you cannot accurately isolate a moment in time - because at any moment in time EVERYTHING you observe is in the process of change (on a quantum level particles never cease to change unless at 0K). If something is mid change you cannot accurately measure ALL properties (you can however measure 1 property within an uncertainty limit - goes well with QM).

Here's a link to the continuous time theory (2003) by Peter Lynds (NZ) who has been seen as the next Einstein - there's a PDF document above the Abstract

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/

I disclaim my self from any headaches you may get

[pallidin]

Time is a relationship of change. If nothing ever changed in the whole universe than there would be no "time"

"Change" is interesting.

Change say's that an "event" occurs which is not simultaneous with the preceding state-of-affairs. The "interval" between the two states is an attribute we call "time" and we have ascribed arbitrary units of measurement to "standardize" this effect.

Without "change" one could not walk, could not talk, could not drive a car, etc... because each involves a series of events separate from each other.

[Super Pancake]

How can time be constant if it we don't know if it ever began in the first place. We can assume time started with a universal reality, not human reality. But we don't know when the universal reality began or if it even ends. It's just here!

I think our existence is just one big moment of reality, time is only a label psychologically and relative when it come to physics, but something that exist no.

[Stellar]

What I mean is it possible that everything in 'time' just goes from A to B etc, and once you're at B, A is no longer in existence.

Im not exactly sure what you mean... but in order to go from A to B, there would need to be time.

Personally, i reckon time is a human concept. Cos if we weren't here time wouldn't exist as a separate entity. Also, why is an hour 60mins? Why not a hundred or a thousand? time is jst a way for us to keep track of wot's goin on.

The measurement of time is but not time as a dimension. Even before we came up with any way of measuring time, time existed. Saying time is created by humans is like saying depth is created by humans.

yeh, but ur assuming that there's something out there that can measure time apart from us!

No he isnt. Something's ability to measure time has no effect on the answer.

How do you know u jst moved forwards about a minute? u might not have gone anywhere or u might have moved forward about a century...

I dont think you understand what he meant. It took him about a minute to write his post or read this thread and write a post... so, from whatever time he started counting from, he went foreward 1 minute. The time which he started counting is 1 minute behind him.

ur askin wot is time and i'm sayin its a human thing and we define time as minutes and hours etc. So, essentially time doesn't exist only motion through the universe does, see? original.gif

Without time there wouldnt be motion! By your logic, if humans killed themselves, everything would simply freeze.

I mean, when ur dreamin time isn't the same then is it?

Yes, it is. If you slept for a 24 hours, the Earth would still have made one rotation...

Yes it still moves forwards while ur asleep, but in ur dreams time cud hav a completely different scale and relevance.

But thats not time. Thats the perception of time. Time is still the same, yet if in your 5 minute dream lasts 5 hours (Im not sure if that actually happens) it is because your brain is functioning slower and processing slower. It would be like sayign that depth is a human creation because I can take an elastic and stretch it.

Time is the only constant there is in the whole universe. It always travels, never ending, and always at the same speed.

Whoah, wait a minute... where'd you hear that?

[ai_guardian]

Pallidin, looks like we're on the same wavelength. I must've posted a split second before your post. Check out my view - post #15.

Cheers

[pallidin]

Pallidin, looks like we're on the same wavelength. I must've posted a split second before your post. Check out my view - post #15.

Cheers

632434[/snapback]

LOL!!!!! Yep, I see that, and at the same 4:43.

[seeking]

we're talkin about time as a concept, aren't we?  so wot ur sayin is true, of course we move forwards and we have body clocks and animals will carry on moving BUT ur askin wot is time and i'm sayin its a human thing and we define time as minutes and hours etc.  So, essentially time doesn't exist only motion through the universe does, see?

632325[/snapback]

time is not a human thing, the measurment however is, a minute is only a minute because we decided to make it that way, just like an inch is an inch because we just decided it would be, but thats how you have to do things, you must first make a reference, so you can then, from there on, make measurements based on the first reference, for instance, humans use minutes, and hours to measure time but that does not mean it is the only way

[BurnSide]

Time is the only constant there is in the whole universe. It always travels, never ending, and always at the same speed.

Whoah, wait a minute... where'd you hear that?

632420[/snapback]

Makes sense doesn't it? People die, planets shrivel, stars explode, etc etc. But time never stops.

What else is constant?

..

Oh, except for energy. Which, technically i suppose, is a variation of time itself.

[Stellar]

Makes sense doesn't it? People die, planets shrivel, stars explode, etc etc. But time never stops.

What else is constant?

The same speed thing though... where'd you hear that?

[Super Pancake]

how do you guys know time exist outside the human perception, don't you think it's biased to say this is the universe and this is how it works. We are just specs of dust compared to the grand picture, what ever it is!

Time is a relationship of change. If nothing ever changed in the whole universe than there would be no "time"

This is a human perception there is no evidence to support that this is how the universe works or is, your not the universe to make an assumption like that. Who are we to say this is what time is or what change is in the universe?

[pallidin]

Makes sense doesn't it? People die, planets shrivel, stars explode, etc etc. But time never stops.

What else is constant?

The same speed thing though... where'd you hear that?

632759[/snapback]

"Time" is a transcendent quality. It is not constrained. This is, in part, why it is sometimes referred to as the 4th Dimension.