Movement Gives Meaning to Time

[coberst]

I suspect that motion detection is the most fundamental sense that almost all creatues must have to survive.

[freeztar]

I suspect that motion detection is the most fundamental sense that almost all creatues must have to survive.

 

I'd agree with you on that for the more complex forms of life. Just to be a bit pedantic though, motion detection is not a sense. Humans are able to detect motion by using the senses of vision, hearing, and touch.

[modest]

The circadian clock is as basic and biologically instinctual as spatial orientation and movement and I know of no way to say one gives meaning to the other.

 

~modest

[coberst]

If you are interested in “meaning” I suggest for study “The Birth and Death of Meaning” Becker, “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson, “More Than Cool Reason” by Lakoff and Turner, “The Meaning of the Body” by Johnson, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and “Lila” by Pirsig.

[jedaisoul]

For what it is worth, I would suggest that change gives a meaning to time. Change includes motion, and both are functions of time, but it is difficult to conceive of time other than as change.

[modest]

For what it is worth, I would suggest that change gives a meaning to time. Change includes motion, and both are functions of time, but it is difficult to conceive of time other than as change.

 

You can't have movement and change without space either. I wonder if the most basic thing we could say is: space gives meaning to time and time gives meaning to space. Put them together and you can measure change, motion, entropy, and everything else.

 

~modest

[jedaisoul]

You can't have movement and change without space either. I wonder if the most basic thing we could say is: space gives meaning to time and time gives meaning to space. Put them together and you can measure change, motion, entropy, and everything else.

I agree that you can't have motion without space, but you can have change that is not dependent upon space and motion. You can't have change without time. So time and space are not on a par in this respect.

[modest]

So time and space are not on a par in this respect.

 

I believe they absolutely are.

 

you can have change that is not dependent upon space.

 

I can think of no example. If something has no space to move or change - it cannot be described doing so. No space, no movement, no change.

 

~modest

[jedaisoul]

If something has no space to move or change - it cannot be described doing so. No space, no movement, no change.

What about pigment fading in the sunlight?

[modest]

What about pigment fading in the sunlight?

 

Both sunlight and the chemical reaction of pigment fading are examples of things moving in space. It really should be obvious you can't have movement without space. Movement is meters/second or space/time. You have to have both space and time to have movement or "change".

 

~modest

[coberst]

I am inclined to say that space is a literal reality and time is an abstract idea. We can experience space just as we can experience a tree but we cannot say the same thing about time.

[modest]

I am inclined to say that space is a literal reality and time is an abstract idea. We can experience space just as we can experience a tree but we cannot say the same thing about time.

 

Impossible to experience space without time. Impossible to measure or observe anything without time. Also, by Einstein's hole argument it's impossible to experience space without matter.

 

You need all three for anything to be real. Time, space, and matter.

 

~modest

 

EDIT:

by matter I include energy and the like

 

Second Edit:

 

I should expand on this thought and support what I'm saying better. You can't see things unless the light moves from the thing to your eye. The movement of light requires time. You can't feel something unless electrical signals move from your fingers to your brain requiring time. An object cannot have temperature unless it's molecules are moving which requires time.

 

A person on a planet watches a rocket ship go into a black hole. They see time slow down on the rocket as it gets closer to the event horizon. When the rocket gets to the event horizon time on the rocket is zero - it is dilated to zero by time dilation. When time reaches zero it is impossible to observe the rocket. It disappears. Without time there is no way to observe the rocket.

 

You cannot experience anything (space included) without time.

[jedaisoul]

Both sunlight and the chemical reaction of pigment fading are examples of things moving in space. It really should be obvious you can't have movement without space. Movement is meters/second or space/time. You have to have both space and time to have movement or "change".

I agree that you have to have space to have movement, and I also agree that there is movement involved in the process of pigment fading (the earth rotating on its axis and around the sun). The question is, would the pigment fade anyway if there was no movement? I think that the answer is yes.

 

I.e. Movement is a form of change, but not the only one.

[modest]

I agree that you have to have space to have movement, and I also agree that there is movement involved in the process of pigment fading (the earth rotating on its axis and around the sun). The question is, would the pigment fade anyway if there was no movement? I think that the answer is yes.

 

No. It's got nothing to do with the earth moving. Pigment fading is a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions are the movement of molecules. Atoms bond with different molecules and create different molecules. All of that is movement. When I say pigment cannot fade without space and time or movement that's what I'm referring to. It also would be impossible for light to bump into the pigment in order to initiate the chemistry that results in change without movement.

 

Nothing can change or move without space and time. No example can be given otherwise - it's a simple fact of geometry. Movement is space/time.

 

~modest

[coberst]

I would say that Becker and Lakoff are my principal teachers in matters of human nature. These teachers inform me that the ‘id’ or the ‘it’ is the ground from which the ‘I’ is born. The id is instinctive life undignified by conscious control.

 

The id is instinctive reactive control and the ‘ego’ is the word we have assigned to indicate the human “organ” that develops control of the id and distinguishes the human animal from the other animals. The ego gives coherence and order to the activities of the brain.

 

Without the ego all other animals know not time; humans know time because they alone know of their own death. Psychoanalysis claims that the ego creates time by “binding” it, i.e. “the individual gives the world of events a fixed point of self-reference”…This is what allows man to live in a symbolic world of his own creation.” Other animals live in the continual world of “now”.

[jedaisoul]

Nothing can change or move without space and time. No example can be given otherwise - it's a simple fact of geometry. Movement is space/time.

I agree that movement is impossible without space and time. I'm just not sure that the same is true of change. I see change as, in principle, being dependent on time, but not necessarily on space. However, I agree that I cannot think of an example of change that does not involve space. Therefore I must concede that it is conceivable that change unavoidably implies motion.

[paigetheoracle]

The way I see time is a measurement of change. I'd also say that time cannot occur without motion (Point A to point :) and is just a way of combining the two as a concept