Time does not exist

[AGThePoet]

The way i see it "time" does not exist. It is simply a mental thought created by us humans to create a schedule. What is "time"? It is not an object, it is an idea. That is why it is not possible to truly travel "through" time; you cannot move through something that does not exist. It is a notion, nothing more. You cannot hold, see, pass through, or truly even prove it's existence except as a measurement of the sun spinning around the Earth. Time does not exist in the sense that a apple does; You can see an apple, feel it, taste it. Time is in our imaginations. You can say that we can travelt through time because we are constantly doing so, even as I write this. However, if our notion of "time" had evolved as to the point where we percieve it as not moving, then the entire notion would be worthless and we would never even think about it. Everything that is real changes. Time does not. It is always the same, becuase it is not real.

 

There may be a "river" of tie, but it is not so much a river as a very small pond emerging just us and moving with us. You cannot leave the pond, much as you cannot leave the so called "river of time" that has been so popular amongst the masses. You cannot change the future because if you go into the future to change something then at the time you are at your present, though it may be the future compared to the place you just left.

 

Comments please

 

agthepoet

[Tormod]

AG, it sounds to me you are saying time is just an illusion, and only for people. Am I right?

 

How the do you explain, say, that we can measure the age of the Universe to exactly 13,7 billion years? Is that not an ultimate example of the passage of time?

 

Tormod

[AGThePoet]

The universe has been around for 13.7 billion years. I'm not saying things do not have a time of creation and then a time of life. When I say time does not exist, I am using it in the context that time travel is impossible because time is a measurment that humans made to date and schedule things. We can measure it, but we cannot travel through it.

 

It really is an abstract subject, and rather difficult to explain. Time is not a spacial dimension. It doesn't exist as a dimension that you can see and move through. The notion that we call "time" is really just a relization that all things happen in sequence to eachother. We can imagine that "time" is a river that we can swim in, it is impossible. We can slow the passing of it by going extremely fast, and perhaps stop it if we go the speed of light, but we cannot go beyond the speed of light (doesn't einstein say that?) and standing perfectly still won't slow it down.

 

One thing I noticed to enforce my belief that time is a perception and not a dimension is when I can stare at a clock and mentally get the seconds hand to slow down and speed by by slowing down and speeding up my perception of time. When you are bored time seems to go slow because you have nothing to think about except the time, and as you become aware if it's presence in a more vived way it seems to slow down.

 

When someone said "our senses do not determine what exists, because they are limited," one could say that though we don't sense everything that is real, but everything that we sense is real. The second statement is true in the sense that everything we sense is real in the way that we sensed it, but not neccasarily in the way that we infer it to be. When you see a mirage of water in the desert, the image of the mirage is real but the inferred reality of water is false. The same thing can happen with time. Our perception of it is real, however the inferred conslusion that we can travel through it at will is false. Time is all in our imaginations, and you cannot travel into new places and times through pure imagination.

 

Alex

[Lord Henry Wotton]

Relativity. Your theory on time being a function of the brain is quite false. Your mind percieves, but does not regulate or create time. Your clock example is quite simply a psychosis, a state of mind and not in any way a regulation of time.

Your final paragraph is both contradictory and well...you make illogical conclusions. You seem to skip steps of logical thought. I think that you're a very intelligent person, but you're getting ahead of yourself. Your theory is based upon your small knowledge of the concepts invloved. Just wait a few years before you start creating your theories. You are very smart.

 

You have Descartes style of thought. Your only problem is that you skipped a few steps. Descartes attempted proofs on the existance of God but first had to have proof for the existance of himself. he invented his famous Cogito ergo sum (I thik therefore I am). Although I very much believe that your theory is ridiculously false, you have a very good mind. Just show every logical step.

 

Your image and mirage analogy is not accurate.

 

Inferred conclusion? I can't completely follow your theory (sorry, it doesn't make sense). I think that you may be saying that from our perception it is true, but in reality it is false. Are you saying that it is all a matter of perspective? This is the very beginning concept of relativity. It does not however prove that time does not exist, rather that it is like space entirely ambiguous, based upon perspective.

[AGThePoet]

Originally posted by: Lord Henry Wotton

Relativity. Your theory on time being a function of the brain is quite false. Your mind percieves, but does not regulate or create time. Your clock example is quite simply a psychosis, a state of mind and not in any way a regulation of time.

 

Your final paragraph is both contradictory and well...you make illogical conclusions. You seem to skip steps of logical thought. I think that you're a very intelligent person, but you're getting ahead of yourself. Your theory is based upon your small knowledge of the concepts invloved. Just wait a few years before you start creating your theories. You are very smart.

 

 

 

You have Descartes style of thought. Your only problem is that you skipped a few steps. Descartes attempted proofs on the existance of God but first had to have proof for the existance of himself. he invented his famous Cogito ergo sum (I thik therefore I am). Although I very much believe that your theory is ridiculously false, you have a very good mind. Just show every logical step.

 

 

 

Your image and mirage analogy is not accurate.

 

 

 

Inferred conclusion? I can't completely follow your theory (sorry, it doesn't make sense). I think that you may be saying that from our perception it is true, but in reality it is false. Are you saying that it is all a matter of perspective? This is the very beginning concept of relativity. It does not however prove that time does not exist, rather that it is like space entirely ambiguous, based upon perspective.

 

 

 

Time does exist for all applications except for time travel. The concept of "time" is made to show when something was done or when something will happen; It is a tool for organization, not a dimension.

 

But for the sake of argument I'll say time is a dimension.

 

I looked up the word "time" in an online dictionary and the two meanings that caught my eye are:

 

1. nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

 

2. A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval:

 

Some parts to take note of:

1 Time is non-spatial.

2 It is "apparently" irreversible.

3 A number representing such an interval (of time)

 

To take a closer look at these:

 

2. Time is nonspatial.

"Space" is defined as :

 

The infinite extension of the three-dimensional region in which all matter exists.

 

If all matter exists in "space" and time is not in this "space", then how are we to reach time to travel through it? Us humans have the ability to move throughout the universe; Yet time is not in the universe. Blackholes may transport us to a different point in space, but you cannot walk through time, because it is not in the area called space that we live in. So even if time is a dimension, we are hopless to reach it. So how does time affect us if it is not where we are? Consider the human and the ant. The ant lives in two dimensions: the ground. They cannot reach up to us, to the third dimension. yet we can still affect them greatly. When the child shines the magnifying glass upon them to bring death, the ants don't know what is happening; They do not even understand it is the child doing it to them. Perhaps time is like this then, able to affect us in ways beyond our understanding.

 

2. It is "apparently" irreversible.

Continuing with the thinking above, we cannot get to time. If we cannot reach time, then we cannot control it. The ant cannot affect the heights above him except by perhaps eating a plant which could indirectly change the sky above him. Perhaps we too can affect time indirectly. I believe that the theory of Relativity falls into this category. We are not changing the past because we are just slowing down the future. You cannot change the future beca

[AGThePoet]

he way I have seen it (and correct me if I am wrong here) is that all time has ever been to humans is a way to know when something has or will occur. The year was created to have a measurement of the length of the 4 seasons combined, the four seasons were not created sso as to fit the human's thought of measurement. Gravity controls this cycle (and lots of other stuff, but you get my point). If the caveman had never said "I'll see you next moon," then perhaps the human race would have no concept of time. The notion was inevitable however and somone was bound to think of it.

The beginning traces of "time" in our history were not human-made terms like "month" and "year" and "second." They were refrences to natural cycles in nature. So "time" was never anything until the cavemen decided to start paying attention to it. It is a neccesity in our culture to be able to know when excactly something will happen, but off the realiztion that time could be measured came the thought that it could be traveled on- backwards. This is utterly false. Someday we may find a way to travel into the future; however, you cannot travel to the past so if anyone went from 2003 to 2300 he would be stuck there because he cannot travel to the past that 2003 would be at that time. So time travel may have very little reason to happen at all considering that when 2003 finally caught up with him they would already know more than him. The only reason I could think of with this scenerio is if you could travel anywhere in the 3 spatial dimensions while traveling through time to the future, you could travel 1 second into the future and pop out anyplace in the universe. Also, instead of cryostasis you could simply send them to land in your labratory in 50 years when they have a cure for the rich dudes disease. Just some stuff to think about.

[Lord Henry Wotton]

Ok...

Ants live in three spatial dimensions plus time.

You are again making some illogical inferences when you say that because time is non-spatial, it cannot be travelled through. From one of your posts in another forum I can see that you are in grade 10. When you learn about relativity and the space-time continuum these issues will be greatly elightened. Things change over 'time". Time as one learns in everyday life exists merely as a concept, but in the sense of physics and the true reality of time, time exists. As we speak we are travelling through time.

You say that time is just for the purposes of reference, given a numerical value. This is false. Time is a dimension. There is no arguement here. Time is the concept of alterations of the spatial dimension. Without the dimension of time spatial dimensions could not alter in any way.

[Tormod]

@Alex - while I do condone the action of looking up words in a dictionary it is not necessarily the best way to get definitions of words. Remember, when we discuss time in a "philosophy and humanities" forum we need to define time within that framework. The dictionary definition is a basic, no-frills, everyone-can-understand-it sort of definition.

 

I think you are confusing physical time with sociological time. Our sense of time passing is indeed subjective, as you point out. Throughout human history, we have learned to measure time as it fits us on our globe, relative to our surroundings (tidal powers, orbits, solar cycles, planetary movements etc).

 

Yet it has been proven that speed and gravity change time. If you were to live your life on top of Mt Everest, an extremely accurate atomic clock would show that time is passing at a slightly different rate than it is at sea level. The reason for this is that time is relative to the observers speed and place in space.

 

We have absolutely no evidence that it is impossible to travel back in time, just like we have nothing but theorems stating that it is possible.

 

@Lord Henry - it is not necessary to point out anyone's age or school grade. Everyone is welcome to have their own point of view and discuss them here. As is you!

 

Tormod

[AGThePoet]

I think he had a point when he mentioned I was only in 10th grade; It doesn't mean I am not as intelligent as older people, but it does mean m education has not developed as much. So I am basing the entire theory on a relatively small knowledge base. That being said, where could I find information on this sort of subject that doesn't contain the extremely complex mathimatical equations (I have only had algebra 1 and geometry at this point, I will go through calculus by the end of high school but for now I still know next to nothing about qantum mechanics)?

 

 

Thanks for the help everyone

 

Alex

[Roberto]

First, I agree with Tormod when he says that you are confusing the psychological sensation of time (or social time) and physical time. Suppose you are in a room with some other person. THe person is getting fun doing something that you don't like and you are bored. The person will feel the time passing faster thatn you, but it's just a psychological sensation. If both have sincronized clocks, both will always agree with what time is it. You can check it by asking... The fact is, two persons in the same reference frame will agree about time and the effects of time dilation due to velocity or gravity may be objectively calculated.

 

But, anyway, I'm not understanding fully your point. In the beggining I though you were saying that time does not exists, was an illusion. Now you're saying that it exists but it's not a dimension. What exactly is your point?

 

You say that time is not a dimension because you cannot travel to the past, but it is not the definition of a dimension. (And do not search the dictionary, because, as Tormod said, the definitions they put there are not accurate, they're just for everyone get an idea of it). I already posted a message somewhere where I said that the idea that time is a dimension comes from the fact that general relativity use a metric where time enters together with space.

[Lord Henry Wotton]

Very well said AG. As I said before, you are very intelligent. You are a free thinker. I for one cannot say that at your age (hang on...that was last year...) that I was developing my own theories on time.

 

Tormod - No intention on my part to oppress anyones opinions. Whilst I agree that it wasn't necessary to point out AG's age, the message seems to have been understood by the person it was intended for.

[AGThePoet]

But, anyway, I'm not understanding fully your point. In the beggining I though you were saying that time does not exists, was an illusion. Now you're saying that it exists but it's not a dimension. What exactly is your point?

 

I'm learning as I write this so that was my opinion changing... at first I was saying that it doesn't exist at all, but later I changed it to it exists as a psychological phenomenon but as nothing more. Now I may be forced to change yet again as I find new information on the subject. Should be interesting to see what I believe in five or ten years

 

alex

[Roberto]

Let me congratulate you for your attitude, AG. I'm seeing that you have the spirit of a true scientist. A lot of times in this forum I saw people that stick too much too their theories and that cannot change their mind even in presence of the most obvius counter arguments.

 

A true scientist cannot be ashamed to change his(or her) mind when exposed to new facts or arguments, and I'm seeing that you're ready to do this anytime. That's the objective of discussions: clear a fact, not just impose your point to others. Continue this way and you'll have a lot of success, not only in science but in everything in your life.

 

[GAHD]

The best way I can think of to abstractly describe time is as a straight, one dimensional line. Wrapped up inside this one dimension is 3 other dimensions (X, Y, Z). now picture yourself being inside that line moving from one side to the other at a constant speed, though all you can perceive and alter are the X, Y, and Z dimensions.

Though I do disagree with Tormod; the clock on Mt. Everest would not show even a subtle difference from the one at sea level if you placed one at both locations, then brought them together a year later.

From what I know about the theory of relativity the effect of time-dilation is nothing more than a perceived effect because light itself moves at a constant speed.

Ex.1 A man in a spaceship is moving away from the Earth at .5C.

This man perceives everything on earth happening on earth at 1/2 the speed it should be happening because the light had to travel an increasingly long distance to reach the viewer. The effect would be compounded if the viewer were to accelerate, as he would be traveling even more distance as time passed, requiring the light to travel even farther to reach him.

Ex.2 A man is on a spaceship moving away from the earth at .5C, the spaceship accelerates to .75C over the course of 5 seconds. (I Discount the acceleration pasting the man to the back of the ship, acceleration induced forces are mysteriously out of the example for the sake of simplicity)

At the start of that 5 seconds the man perceives everything on earth moving at 1/2 speed. Over the course of the 5 seconds, things on Earth slow even more as the ship begins covering more distance in less time. Eventually at the end of the acceleration things on earth appear to be moving at 1/4 speed.

However in both Ex 1 and 2 time on Earth is actually moving at normal speed, at the exact same speed as our Man is in fact. Any people on Earth would see any activities on the ship happening at 1/2 speed (or 1/4 speed in ex 2) because of the same distance equation. If there were 2 atomic clocks in sync on the ship and on Earth they would both show the same time as each other. Only when viewing the counter point clock would someone perceive a difference as the light from that surface would not have had enough time to reach his or her eyes yet.

[Roberto]

GAHD, I´m sorry but your description of time dilation is wrong. Time dilation is not an ilusion caused by the finiteness of light speed. It is indeed caused by the fact that the speed of light measured by both observers, the one on the Earth and the one on the spaceship, will be the same independently of their velocities, but is a real effect and can be measured.

 

You cannot compare the clocks more than once in Special Relativity at the same point because the theory requires inertial frames, but if you allow accelerations, you can start with the clocks of the Earth and the spaceship sincronized and then you can make the spaceship fly to some distant place and return. When the spaceship returns, you can compare the same clocks and you will see that, not only the clock on the spaceship will show an earlier time than that in the Earth, but even the spaceship crew will be younger than peopla who had the same age of them when they departed.

 

Time dilation is a real effect, not an optical illusion. It is measured in sattelites.

[GAHD]

You know, I've had many people say the same to me, but no one has ever been able to prove the effect of time dilation. If Satellites have measured it, I'd love to finally have someone who can provide proof, not just a weak semantical argument.

So far every piece of "proof" shown to me can be dismantled to show that any delay would be caused by lithe speed of light itself, not the speed of the object. For instance, plot a graph of EX#2 in AU, you'll quickly see how the perceived dilation would occur between the ship & planet. Though it only really becomes evident when you measure the time the light would take to travel the distance in 1 second snapshots(or ¼ second, 1/8th, it shows up pretty much everywhere mathematically)

[Roberto]

The only real proof of every theory is the expriments. So, read the following paper:

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc?0103036