Time Doesn't Exist

[!!!]

Time also doesn't exist the way we think of it in the sense that the past is gone, now it's just all in your head, and the future never existed, it's also all in your head.

Also, there is a small delay between us experiencing a sensory stimuli and our brains processing it. Meaning if I look at a plant, and I say "the color RIGHT NOW is green" I would be somewhat wrong. The light has to reflect off the plant and into my retinal, and then kick off a chain of chemical processes that eventually lead to me "seeing" that the plant is green. Between the time the light reflected off the plant and the realization that it is green, it could have changed colors.

So "right now" is of course relative. It covers a range of time that may be different in context.

This reminded me of this:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=3862359

 

[Mudita]

All possible histories are and have been, all possible futures are and will be and all possible nows are. Which tiny slice of this you perceive is limited by your perspective.

 

[teerull]

When dealing with the topic "time", a quote pops up in my mind:

"There is neither past nor future but just the eternal now."

just wanted to share the formula for happiness - in my case of course.

*edit* great thread by the way!
peace,
T

 

[englishrick]

has anyone mentiond Einstein`s "special relitivity"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdfnRWGgbd0

 

[GMT]

Mudita's post explains the frame work within which einsteins special relativity operates.

 

[Cookie monster]

Animals and trees do not care about time. They eat when they can, pee when they can, and mate when they can. Most of their behaviors are instinct. [/I]

I dont know about that bro.

There are a few animals that only breed every few years and plants like that cactus that only blooms every 100 years, time must mean something to plants and animals?

My 3 dogs sure as hell know that 6:30pm is their feed time, they start barking at 6:31pm

 

[englishrick]

imo,,time and space are relative to the motion of an observer and they are not independent of each other. Time and space are connected to make four-dimensional "spacetime"

supprizing as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously

in 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes:,,,

"Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now.

Einstein believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

Einstein proved that time is relative, not absolute as Newton claimed,,, with the proper technology, such as a very fast spaceship, one person is able to experience several days while another person simultaneously experiences only a few hours or minutes. The same two people can meet up again, one having experienced days or even years while the other has only experienced minutes. The person in the spaceship only needs to travel near to the speed of light. The faster they travel, the slower their time will pass relative to someone planted firmly on the Earth. If they were able to travel at the speed of light, their time would cease completely and they would only exist trapped in timelessness. Einstein could hardly believe there were physicists who didn’t believe in timelessness, and yet the wisdom of Einstein's convictions had very little impact on cosmology or science in general. The majority of physicists have been slow to give up the ordinary assumptions we make about time.

 

[Stoner4Life]

back in the day a new VCR meant you could make time stand still

 

[pearlemae]

If time doesn't exist. Why was I accused of wasting it when I was younger? LOL!!

 

[GMT]

It is more accurate to say here in time, as we do, here in location, as now is merely a location in time.

It shouldnt be forgotten that even travelling at high speeds, time does not slow down for the one travelling. Their time continues as it always has, its just those they rejoin later have experienced far less time than they have. Giving rise to the belief that it is not the same people met later on but people from an alternate reality, which fits nicely with the multiverse theory. However the multiverse is not a complete separate set of particles making up a whole set of beings, but each particle exists within its own universe, meeting other particles existing within their own universe. It is in fact "universe" that is the illusion.

Also its worth noting that as speed increases, so does mass, and therefore gravititional effect. If a person approached the speed of light, they would weigh so much , their own gravitational force would crush them into a golfball and kill them.

 

[englishrick]

if you put me in a space ship an tryed to make me hit the speed of light,,,,,my body might be crushed but what is to say my spirit will not hit the speed of light,,,into the reml of timelessness i go

 

[englishrick]

funnily enough ,,,this puts me into deep thought!!!!,,,,the whole idea that this contaption could record and playback is faccinating to me

back in the day a new VCR meant you could make time stand still

 

[GMT]

lol rick, me, I say so, because you dont have a spirit, just a body. Sorry for breaking it to ya so hard, but hey, ya know.

 

[MrPuff]

Is it "time" that doesn't exist or is it the human understanding of "time" that doesn't exist?

I think time as we know it is not the "time" constructed and defined by the universe. I can't tell you what it really is though.

What if you had a completely empty room with not a single particle inside, would time still exist inside? There is no change, nothing to relate our definition of time.

 

[englishrick]

^^^

@GMT,,,,,^^^im stickin with MrPuff,,

i bet you know time dont exist,,i bet you have seen it ,,,you avatar says it all to me

 

[GMT]

what ever the walls were made of would still have their own half life.

 

[GMT]

lol so long as the hands on the clock dont stop, I know its all ok rick

 

[englishrick]

make it a photon clock and i bet i could

 

[GMT]

if it was a photon clock, then all times would exist simultaneously. A photon weights less than the critical limit of 0.0000000000000000000000001g below which the laws of quantum mechanics begin. And since photons are not only particles but also waves, and travel onlong infinate paths in space at the same time, only deciding upon which path it travelled at the point it is measured or observed, then it would need to be watched in order for it to tick.
So yeah you could put it in your pocket and effectively make it stop until you took t out and looked at it again.

 

[statusquo]

I am a phil/poly sci major and have taken a philosophy of time class and done a lot of reading on the topic. In short, time does exist. 4 dimensional time in that it is exists wholly. Every moment in time exists simultaneously. The past, present and future all exist. This solves many problems like fatalism, determinism, personal identity and a few other fundamental metaphysical questions.

Also, just because we don't have the ability to give a 100% accurate representation of a single moment doesn't mean that these don't exist (of course I don't agree with this this point of view - the 3D view/A theorist view of time).

In regards to change/the problem of "is there time if there is no change" is also somewhat irrelevant. Time doesn't play a role in physics and except for the one exception, physical laws are symmetrical (I believe this one exception might stem from our incomplete models for describing the universe). Time as a human construct follows three general "arrows": the causal arrow (cause before effect); the radiative arrow (things radiate from a central point outwards); and a entropic arrow (entropy is always increasing).

My view of the universe is that time is cyclical. All these arrows will eventually reverse and the universe will collapse towards a big crunch. Then another big bang so on and so forth. Time/existence is infinite and almost every natural process I can think of occurs in cycles. Also, doesn't it bother anyone else that the big bang says things just didn't "exist" and then all of a sudden, boom, existence....