What is time?

[Jay-qu]

I think it was Einstein that once said that 'the passage of time is only an illusion even if a stubborn one!'

all time exists at once in space-time.. - when thinking about time you have to let go of common sense, if you listened to common sense you would believe that the sun orbits the earth!

[Southtown]

His affection for a universe consisting of 10^68 pre-rendered, unchanging copies of the observable universe bears an uncanny similarity to his affection for pre-rendered pages of Apple 2 color graphics.

 

On some level, he does recognize it. Somehow, it just didn’t feel wrong.

Bravo! HAHAHA! Brilliant! I can't believe I missed that, thanks CD. Reminds me of another smart physicist's philosophy:

“

Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

— Albert Einstein

Who's to say it's not true? HAHA One thing is for sure: the attempted contemplation of time stretches the consciousness to its limit. Time perhaps even defines consciousness. Time, gravity, and matter/energy will probably all be defined at once.

 

when thinking about time you have to let go of common sense, if you listened to common sense you would believe that the sun orbits the earth!

What?! :hihi: Why exactly is that? Didn't the "age of reason" bring an end to such ideas?

[CraigD]

Tıme is a dimension like other length dimensions. Because it is measurable and dimension of time defines one of coordinates. Besides ıt determınes the period of event or the moment of event.

... with (at least) one critical distinction: with a modest amount of work, I can rotate a physical object (such as the stylus I'm writing this with) so that its "length" is now its "width" or "height" - that is, apply rotational coordinate transform to all of its points.

 

I can't rotate it in a way that effects its time coordinates. For example, I can’t manipulate it in a way that swapps its time coordinate for its north-south coordinates, so that my old stylus becomes longer, or newer. *

 

Treating time as a dimension is very useful, but the time dimension is not like a spatial dimension in the way a one spatial dimension is like another.

 

* A stickler for details might point out that I actual can do something like that by giving it a velocity – according to Relativity, Fitzgerald length contraction can be described as a rotation in the 4 dimension of Minkowski space - but this isn't at all like rotating it about its 3 spatial dimensions. A "90 degree" rotation, which requires a tiny amount of energy about the 3 spatial dimensions (and doesn't involve my stylus flying off into the great beyond!) would require an infinite amount of energy when done about the time dimension.

[CraigD]

… But our clocks have standart pulses for every condition. The clocks are neverbecame slower or faster by the theory SR. If tempo of time can differ because of any reason, the clock can not show it. For example the period of day is became small, the clock show forward.

Please, if you will, let’s try to keep this thread free of the lively ongoing debate about the validity of Special Relativity. Many other threads are doing a good job of hosting this debate.

[Qfwfq]

I can't rotate it in a way that effects its time coordinates. For example, I can’t manipulate it in a way that swapps its time coordinate for its north-south coordinates, so that my old stylus becomes longer, or newer.

Yes you can rotate it. Er, uhm, not exactly rotate, but pseudorotate. Just run past it.

 

The so-called time dilatation and Lorentz contraction are nothing but a pseudorotation, in a plane that isn't spacelike.

[saidevo]

I would like to subscribe to the following theory on time, since

it is scientific, logical and spiritual -- all rolled into one.

 

1. Time is an illusion: not a reality, not a dimension.

2. Time is an illusion, born out of changes in space.

3. Time as an illusion, is cyclical, not linear.

4. Time as an illusion, is infinite, like space.

5. Measurement of time is a conditional break of infinite time.

 

I have the following reasons for subscibing to this theory:

 

1. Time is an illusion: not a reality, not a dimension.

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Firstly, time is an illusion, a mostly visual perception.

 

Close your eyes, switch off all lights, and sit down in a dark room.

Try to relax and still your mind. Just watch the thoughts flow by,

do not participate in them. Stay on in this position as long as

you can.--Now, what impression do you get of time or time passing?

 

You are sleeping. Deep sleep, no dreams. Do you feel time?

You are sleeping, there are dreams. You sense passing of time

in the dream events, but is that perception just not visual?

 

How does a blind man perceive time and its passing? He knows about

time, because he is conditioned into it, but how would he sense it?

What reference does he have as to events and the gaps between them?

His world may be mostly aural, but I dare say he still thinks

pictorially, because human thinking is mostly pictorial in nature,

and this man is blind only physically.

 

How do the animals, birds and other creatures perceive time?

The patterns of their behaviour sure do indicate sensing time,

but how do they do it, if it is not visual?

 

Secondly, time is not a dimension.

 

The idea of time as the fourth dimension is a favourite pick

of science fiction, and possibly started with H.G. Wells' novel

"The Time Machine."

 

Space has three dimensions according to Science.

Spiritually, however, space has n-dimensions.

 

Time has a dimension when measured: linear in local measurement,

cyclic in universal. But time as a dimension is an illusion because

of the illusions of the past, present and the future. As some of

the replies in this thread indicate, there is no question of any

time travel, only space travel.

 

2. Time is an illusion, born out of changes in space.

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Time, as we commonly know it, is the duration or interval between

two events. Where do these events happen? In space, inner or outer.

 

An event or happening, basically changes something in space.

A change occurs at molecular, atomic, sub-atomic or energy levels

with every passing event. We cannot think of time as separate from

space. The term lightyear affirms this fact.

 

Whereas space is real, time is not, as it is only a form of

measurement between two successive manifestations of space.

 

3. Time as an illusion, is cyclical, not linear.

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The very measurement of time is cyclical. The passage of time from

the future through the present to the past appears linear, but time

as such, whether measured in solar years, or some other scale is

cyclical. Nature shows that time is cyclical: sunset follows

sunrise, night follows the day, and the seasons repeat every year.

 

Further, the concept that space manifests as forms that are

created and dissolved back to space makes time to be cyclical.

 

4. Time as an illusion, is infinite, like space.

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Did not the time start when the universe was born? Will not time

end when the universe is ultimately dissolved? Where will it end

when the universe is dissolved? It will end into the inifite space

that ever remains as the primordial, unmanifested space.

 

5. Measurement of time is a conditional break of infinite time.

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The measurement of solar time in year, month and days and further

down is just a conditional break (Khanda kala in Hinduism) of the

infinite time (Kala in Hinduism). Because it is cyclic in nature,

we have the illusion of a continuous flow of time.

 

Regards,

saidevo

[Southtown]

Confucius say: Man in dark room grow old and die.

 

Though I truly like the cyclic part, and perhaps that is how uncivilized creatures perceive time. Everything seems to exist in an interactive state with something else. Consider orbital bodies, and the soothing of babies by rocking...

“

Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years'”

—

Genesis 1:14 nkjv

After all, every measurement of time comes from astrology except the week, which comes from the Genesis creation.

[CraigD]

Thank you, saidevo, for you words on “time is an illusion” – I think you do an excellent job describing this major position on “what is time?”

 

…Close your eyes, switch off all lights, and sit down in a dark room.

Try to relax and still your mind. Just watch the thoughts flow by,

do not participate in them. Stay on in this position as long as

you can.--Now, what impression do you get of time or time passing?

As someone who grew up in the 1960s and 70s in a liberal household in the US, I have done and continue to do quite a lot of what you describe.

 

I have just finished doing it again. Among many sensation, I felt an increased awareness of my body’s activity. One of these activities is the regular, clock-like beating of my heart, and the slightly delayed pulsing of the arterial termini it supplies.

 

So the impression I get of time it that it passes regularly, peacefully, and with awesome ease, but that is does pass, irresistibly.

 

Here is an exercise I’ve found more conducive to producing a sensation of timelessness:

Position yourself in front of a clock with a smoothly-moving second hand.

Still youself.

Focus on the second hand, anticipating first its position now, and its position one great division – five seconds - hence. See that it has reached the anticipated position. Now, anticipate its position now, and in a shorter division hence. See that it has reached that position. Continue.

At some point, without shifting your attention from the clock, consider what you are doing. Consider that 5 seconds is a long time, and that each subsequent division is likewise a long time.

What impression do you get of time or time passing?

[xersan]

I would like to subscribe to the following theory on time, since

it is scientific, logical and spiritual -- all rolled into one.

 

1. Time is an illusion: not a reality, not a dimension.

Regards,

saidevo

 

 

Your vision has large perspective about TIME.

 

You are right we don’t measure a concrete. Time is abstract, and our clocks run by the fixed tempo. And our clocks measure the time at this meaning (fıxed tempo).

 

If the tempo of time becomes slower, our clocks can not be reflected to us.

 

Besides, It is defined “lightclock” theoretically (I don’t know that it was realized). Lightclock uses the reflecting light instead of pendulum. Perhaps, it can determine the real tempo of time. But it has other problems for example direction.

[infamous]

Time is only the memory of passing events, to know the future would diminish the concept of time.

[Qfwfq]

Quite appropriate. Much like Kant's notion of time. Today, one should of course say "proper time".

[Little Bang]

The definition of time in a dictionary seems pretty straight forward to me. but apparently it flies over most peoples head.

[Qfwfq]

I don't think he was asking for a dictionary definition.

[emessay]

1. When time would be necessary 'recalled' then conscious human would be coming as a witness to confirm that it was happened a conscious universe.

2. We are in a cockpit of 'space-time ship' through life since 3.8- 4.5 bya to surviellence universe.

3. The cockpit of 'conscious universe space ship' is singular event, so time is irreversible.

4. Life would be singular event, it's only one earth of one hope for human in universe.

5. People say that we're going somewhere and not alone, I agree.

6. But if you say someday we would be going somewhere in a cockpit of Captain Jean Luc Picard's Enterprise Space-Ship, I would try to understand it.

7. So time is function and it's meaningful for every species who ever lived on earth.

[infamous]

I don't think he was asking for a dictionary definition.

Good point Qfwfq; Our conscious preception of time can only be described as a memory within our frame of experience. However when viewed from a scientific perspective, time has a close relationship with the flow of Entropy in a closed system. Before the Big Bang, if one so chooses to hold to the standard model, time did not exist. If our universe is closed as most believe, then as energy winds down and Entropy increases, there will come a point in time very far in the future where all energy will have been exhausted. At this place in history all motion will cease and Entropy will have reached it's limit. Assuming that our universe has remained closed up to this point, time will cease to exist . Time is the memory of the passage of energy thru zero point Entropy to it's ultimate limit.

[Qfwfq]

Even at maximum entropy, events will still be occurring in detail. This is so, e. g., in a block of lead at thermal equilibrium.

[infamous]

Even at maximum entropy, events will still be occurring in detail. This is so, e. g., in a block of lead at thermal equilibrium.

Is it a true statement to say that maximum entropy will not be reached until all molecular motion has stopped? At absolute zero this should occur, and when all motion has stopped, how is it possible for time to register? Could you explain what events might still occur after maximum entropy has been reached? And if we can define them as events, doesn't that neccessitate some form of motion?