Does time actually exist or is it merely a product of the human mind ?

[UM-Bot]

Scientists and philosophers have long struggled to understand the nature of time and whether or not it even exists at all.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/384156/does-time-actually-exist-or-is-it-merely-a-product-of-the-human-mind

[Ell]

It exists.

[glorybebe]

Interestingly enough, or at least to me, I met a lady who either lost time or it would compress it, she had to set multiple alarms to keep herself on track.  She said she was told it was a form of dyslexia. 

[Portre]

The End of Time by Julian Barbour

An interesting and difficult read, convinced me time is an illusion.

[sanchez710]

I had an interesting 'timeslip' experience once. I was riding my bicycle on a familiar route that I knew took about 30 minutes with landmarks along the way. It was a nice day, sunny & warm and I was enjoying the experience. Maybe I drifted off in my mind and missed various landmarks along the way but I suddenly saw a treeline that marked the end of the route but I was confused as I felt like I had only been riding for 15 mins or so. A classic case of what was mentioned in the story. Time flies when you're having fun it seems!

[Edumakated]

I think adrenaline makes your perception of time slow down. I know when I've been in an accident, time seems to slow to a crawl. I once hit a deer driving on the freeway. I remember seeing the deer and immediately preparing myself to hit it. I recall thinking I hope that deer doesn't jump out and sure enough it did. It seemed like from the time I saw the deer till I hit it was maybe 10 seconds given how much I thought about... but in reality it was probably closer to one or two seconds at most.

[Guyver]

11 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

I think adrenaline makes your perception of time slow down. I know when I've been in an accident, time seems to slow to a crawl. I once hit a deer driving on the freeway. I remember seeing the deer and immediately preparing myself to hit it. I recall thinking I hope that deer doesn't jump out and sure enough it did. It seemed like from the time I saw the deer till I hit it was maybe 10 seconds given how much I thought about... but in reality it was probably closer to one or two seconds at most.

I had a similar experience while powersliding sideways over a cliff in a four wheel drive truck.  I remember the sensation of going too fast for the curve on a dirt road and the sudden jolt of hitting a rut, and then everything just slowed to almost a standstill.  As we flipped over and over again it was like slow motion.

Anyway, Einstein said that time does exist as a part of spacetime.

[Portre]

Of course, Buddhists have known all along time is an illusion. There is only now.

[jmccr8]

It is a means of measure and nothing more but is useful as a tool or guide.

[flying squid]

 

[Gumball]

Is it not just another wae to quantify something?

[openozy]

9 hours ago, Guyver said:

I had a similar experience while powersliding sideways over a cliff in a four wheel drive truck.  I remember the sensation of going too fast for the curve on a dirt road and the sudden jolt of hitting a rut, and then everything just slowed to almost a standstill.  As we flipped over and over again it was like slow motion.

Anyway, Einstein said that time does exist as a part of spacetime.

Do you think this could be a defence mechanism to prepare yourself for the impact? Whatever it is it's interesting and I've heard this countless times from accident victims, including the mrs.

[Guyver]

13 minutes ago, openozy said:

Do you think this could be a defence mechanism to prepare yourself for the impact? Whatever it is it's interesting and I've heard this countless times from accident victims, including the mrs.

Yes.  That is very possible.  It could also be that our brains are working so fast at that moment that everything seems slow, but we are speeding up.  I was watching this new documentary series about ufo/uap and there was one case they were reviewing where the uap seemed to make a right turn at high speed and there was some film captured of it. They brought on an astrophysicist or someone to discuss how this could be possible is the time dilation principle that Einstein spoke of.  The faster you travel, the slower time moves.  So, the craft captured on film could be moving at a relative speed compared to ours that’s so fast we seem like we are moving in slow motion to it.

[Freez1]

Time is not an illusion if you need solid proof look around your home and locate a hammer. Now go outside and put your thumb face down on the concrete and smack it with that hammer. Write down the exact date and time right before you do it. Now tomorrow look at that piece of paper and think real hard about that exact moment and the pain that thumb experienced. And convince your thumb that was an illusion.

[Portre]

Brian Greene interviews Julian Barbour on the nature of time.

 

[fred_mc]

I never understand discussions about that time might not exist. Everything takes time, a thought takes time for example. Without time, nothing would happen, everything would be static. That is at least how I think but I might be thinking wrong.

[Duke Wellington]

On 1/31/2025 at 4:59 PM, sanchez710 said:

I had an interesting 'timeslip' experience once. I was riding my bicycle on a familiar route that I knew took about 30 minutes with landmarks along the way. It was a nice day, sunny & warm and I was enjoying the experience. Maybe I drifted off in my mind and missed various landmarks along the way but I suddenly saw a treeline that marked the end of the route but I was confused as I felt like I had only been riding for 15 mins or so. A classic case of what was mentioned in the story. Time flies when you're having fun it seems!

Its all about when you wonder off in the mind.

That`s when all the strange experiences start happening. I think what happens is when something stops consciously registering (like where you are) the weirdness creeps in with it.

[sanchez710]

The concept of time itself is a construct of humans. We base time on the rotation of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth to calculate our months and years. We break it down into hours and minutes to measure our daily activities and when to sleep, work etc. Time itself is possibly not linear as some indigenous cultures view existence as a loop and everything is 'now'. No past or future,  only 'now' exists. The present is all there is. That's a cool way to view it!

[Portre]

No matter how hard we try, we can't remember tomorrow. And physicists have no idea why.

In hope of discovering the source of time's river, University of Surrey physicists Thomas Guff, Chintalpati Umashankar Shastry, and Andrea Rocco looked for signs of its existence in the equivalent of a hot quantum bathtub beneath the infinite expanse of eternity.

Needless to say they didn't find what they were looking for, instead confirming time flows backward just as easily as it does forward in the buzz of quantum mechanics. Yet the lessons learned could someday reveal why physics insists on the existence of history.

 

Quantum Search For Time's Source Finds No Difference Between Past And Future

 

[Portre]

On 2/2/2025 at 7:13 AM, fred_mc said:

I never understand discussions about that time might not exist. Everything takes time, a thought takes time for example. Without time, nothing would happen, everything would be static. That is at least how I think but I might be thinking wrong.

You are correct. Everything is static and the flow of time is an illusion.

[openozy]

It's not a product of the human mind because my dogs get let out at 11pm every night for a pee and they are waiting at the door within one minute of this time, Winter or Summer so they aren't going on the light. Not sure how they know though.

[+joc]

18 hours ago, Portre said:

You are correct. Everything is static and the flow of time is an illusion.

That made absolutely zero sense!  Nothing is static.  In the natural universe  nothing is static.  Change is constant, in every single unique part of the universe...the atoms, the quarks, all moving, all of the time...nothing, literally nothing is static in the entire universe.

Time is nothing more than a measurement of change.  In order to measure change, we have to create a static moment.  Then we create movement and then we measure from point to point the velocity of change.  

The Flow of time is an illusion.  They say that time actually slows down or speeds up.  How do we know these things except for measurements...so even the speed of time is a measurement.

Open for interpretation.

[Portre]

5 hours ago, joc said:

That made absolutely zero sense!  Nothing is static.  In the natural universe  nothing is static.  Change is constant, in every single unique part of the universe...the atoms, the quarks, all moving, all of the time...nothing, literally nothing is static in the entire universe.

Time is nothing more than a measurement of change.  In order to measure change, we have to create a static moment.  Then we create movement and then we measure from point to point the velocity of change.  

The Flow of time is an illusion.  They say that time actually slows down or speeds up.  How do we know these things except for measurements...so even the speed of time is a measurement.

Open for interpretation.

An analogy might help. A video is an ordered sequence of still images. Look at any of the images, there is no movement, no change, no time. It is a still image. Static. When viewed as an ordered sequence, from those static, still images, movement, change, and time emerge in three dimensions (2 space, 1 time). The movement, change, and time observed are an illusion.  Holography is a method of generating three-dimensional images. The images are static. Now imagine an ordered sequence on holographic still images. When viewed, movement, change and time would emerge in four dimensions (3 space, 1 time). Those too are illusions. With me so far? Now imagine you are not watching movement, change, and time emerge, rather you are in the three-dimensional images. You observe and experience movement, change, and time. All is static and time, change, movement are illusions.

 

[+joc]

2 hours ago, Portre said:

An analogy might help. A video is an ordered sequence of still images. Look at any of the images, there is no movement, no change, no time. It is a still image. Static. When viewed as an ordered sequence, from those static, still images, movement, change, and time emerge in three dimensions (2 space, 1 time). The movement, change, and time observed are an illusion.  Holography is a method of generating three-dimensional images. The images are static. Now imagine an ordered sequence on holographic still images. When viewed, movement, change and time would emerge in four dimensions (3 space, 1 time). Those too are illusions. With me so far? Now imagine you are not watching movement, change, and time emerge, rather you are in the three-dimensional images. You observe and experience movement, change, and time. All is static and time, change, movement are illusions.

 

Analogies are only parallels, not mirrors of reality.  In reality.  The only static points are the one's we create.  Your analogy itself is a self made static point...it doesn't even exist except in your thought sequence.   The reality is that in the physical world we live in the only thing that actually exists is constant change.  

[Portre]

10 hours ago, joc said:

Analogies are only parallels, not mirrors of reality.  In reality.  The only static points are the one's we create.  Your analogy itself is a self made static point...it doesn't even exist except in your thought sequence.   The reality is that in the physical world we live in the only thing that actually exists is constant change.  

Sorry you missed the point. You could try reading The End of Time by Julian Barbour, or watch Brian Greene interview Julian Barbour on the nature of time