How do you define Time?

So? It's your inability to summarize anything, and all you can do is claim it can't be done. LOL

That's right.

I don't run around reducing complexity to the point where I delude myself I can understand things. That's what bigots do.

Spengler summarised a few things. But at least he took a lot of trouble over it.

Often when I meditate I perceive no time. That's probably because I experience very little change.
"Time," I think, is that which we CREATE (as opposed to merely record) by means of clocks and calendars.

Is this damned thread active again?

I thought we'd solved the question of time back in 2004 when this discussion was first broached.

But you live by another standard when you post on a2k; most of your posts are abbreviated so much, it's difficult to follow what you're trying to say.

Merry Andrew, when you get to be my (and C.I.'s) age it will all look new to you.

What? I have to live to be a hundred? Seven decades ain't good enough?

Yeah, but you're my junior! LOL

JL wrote:
"Often when I meditate I perceive no time. That's probably because I experience very little change."

Perhaps it is because you are experiencing change so fully that there is room for nothing else. I don't think its possible to be something and think about it at the same time...

With time being a human concept, I'm sure we humans can do many things that can be experienced outside of the "norm." How some Buddhist monks can stay in freezing water for prolonged periods is amazing in and of itself, but there are many others that we humans can do that would seem impossible to most of us.

Yes.

All Im saying is that total immersion into any action requires a mind clear of thoughts about the execution of that action.

well its funny that 'time' is one of the fundamental of literally everything,and none can define it?doesnt that mean we can define nothing?

'Time' isn't a fundamental concept of anything. It is merely a measure of distance and speed. 'Time' is a branch we took from a tree and made small cuts in at fixed intervals in order to measure change taking place in relation to other changes taking place.

I don't agree. My theory is; there are universally just two "things". One you might call "mass/energy", the other "space/time", and the two things exist relative to each other.

That's my simplistic and ignorant "theory of everything" derived from my best understanding of Einstein and modern physics.

I hereby predict that it will eventually be discovered that the different types of "elemental" particles will turn out to be infinite, and infinitely (theoretically) divisible.

Well, I disagree Eorl

Like I said, "time" is merely the measurement of change relative to change. It certainly isn't a natural force or a phenomena unto itself. It is merely a tool we humans have invented.

Why Cyracuz, that's sooo 1909.

Albert Einstein wrote;

Hm... Maybe the reason "there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively" is that the concept "now" is invented by subjects that have the concepts of before and after. After all, without the concepts of past and future, the concept "now" is meaningless.

But think of it this way; nothing happens in the past. We cannot change what happened last year. Nor can anything happen in the future. Whatever you are anticipating will only happen when the changing circumstances we refer to as the present catch up to the predicted moment where future and present become one.
And even this is meaningless without specific events which function as manifestations of past and future. And these specific events are never more than memories (past) or expectations or predeictions (future).

So the concept of linear time is a metaphysical one, not physical. It exists in our minds right along side with god and santaclaus.

That's all negated by the fact that my twin brother can be half my age if he travels very fast.

As I've noted before--quoting an old zen master--the (not yet) non-existent future becomes the (no longer) non-existent past in this EMPTY present which, nevertheless, contains everything.

As I've noted before--quoting an old zen master--the (not yet) non-existent future becomes the (no longer) non-existent past in this EMPTY present which, nevertheless, contains everything.