Does time really exist?

@Diogenes phil,

Diogenes;163699 wrote:

From a realist's perspective, of course. Is there any evidence of time's "existence," or is it just another concept devised by mankind to measure the chaos in this world?

Do you think you exist, or are you just an image conjour up in my imagination?:shifty:

0 Replies

@north,

north;164369 wrote:

so Kennethamy

" is there " time , that really " is there " ?

Yes, of course. Let me reassure you of it. I would try to do more, but, you know, time is short and life is fleeting.

---------- Post added 05-15-2010 at 12:21 AM ----------

TuringEquivalent;164432 wrote:

Do you think you exist, or are you just an image conjour up in my imagination?:shifty:

But even if he were, wouldn't he exist? If he is an image conjured up in your imagination, and if such images exist, then doesn't it follow that he exists?

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

Quote:

But even if he were, wouldn't he exist? If he is an image conjured up in your imagination, and if such images exist, then doesn't it follow that he exists?

What does it follow? You see a table in front of you, but is there really a table in front of you? or You only have the image of the table, and you are in fact sleeping, and dreaming of a table?

1 Reply

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;164499 wrote:

What does it follow? You see a table in front of you, but is there really a table in front of you? or You only have the image of the table, and you are in fact sleeping, and dreaming of a table?

If I see a table, there is a table, since unless there were one, I could not see it. But, do you mean, perhaps, that it could seem to me that I see a table, and I not see a table? That is true. Or, again, I might be dreaming of a table. But you are not suggesting, are you, that we are always in the position of its only seeming to us that there is a table, but there not being a table?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164501 wrote:

If I see a table, there is a table, since unless there were one, I could not see it. But, do you mean, perhaps, that it could seem to me that I see a table, and I not see a table? That is true. Or, again, I might be dreaming of a table. But you are not suggesting, are you, that we are always in the position of its only seeming to us that there is a table, but there not being a table?

I mean there might be a table, or you maybe in the matrix. There might be even more weird, exotic possibilities.

1 Reply

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;164507 wrote:

I mean there might be a table, or you maybe in the matrix. There might be even more weird, exotic possibilities.

What might be (if it might be) is one thing. But what is a real possibiliy is a very different story. Fantasies abound , but few, if any, stand a chance of being real or even taken seriously. The weirder the possibility the more evidence is needed to make it a serious possibility.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164511 wrote:

What might be (if it might be) is one thing. But what is a real possibiliy is a very different story. Fantasies abound , but few, if any, stand a chance of being real or even taken seriously. The weirder the possibility the more evidence is needed to make it a serious possibility.

Suppose we are in one of those exotic possibilities. All evidence would be the same as if we are not in one. If you are in the "matrix", the sun will still rise, and path of a trajectory of ball when you kick it will still be a parabolic curve. Evidence don ` t mean anything, because you can` t use it to distinguish what world you are in.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164469 wrote:

Yes, of course. Let me reassure you of it. I would try to do more, but, you know, time is short and life is fleeting.

---------- Post added 05-15-2010 at 12:21 AM ----------

But even if he were, wouldn't he exist? If he is an image conjured up in your imagination, and if such images exist, then doesn't it follow that he exists?

No and no... Imagination, even when it suggests the possible is not real... It is like a reflection that does not exist, because it depends upon other things which do exist, like light, like a mirror, and like a body to be reflected... Turn off the light and the reflection ends... Take the mirror, and take the object and the reflection ends...It needs to be more than possible to exist, and if you take the mind, the memory or imagination ends...It was not there but for the mind being there...If something exists, it can be produced, as an object, and this cannot be done with time, which like a thought, or an image in the mind- has no independent existence...It is an infinite, a moral form, a meaning without being...

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@Diogenes phil,

We may not agree on what time it is?
But we probably all know the time where we are.
The notion of a past, a present, and a future is a fundamental feature of human experience. Philosophies should be not only logical and coherent but also adequate and applicable to human experience. So any conception which denies the "reality" of time is suspect.

0 Replies

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;164512 wrote:

Suppose we are in one of those exotic possibilities.

Why should I suppose that?

1 Reply

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;164512 wrote:

Suppose we are in one of those exotic possibilities. All evidence would be the same as if we are not in one. If you are in the "matrix", the sun will still rise, and path of a trajectory of ball when you kick it will still be a parabolic curve. Evidence don ` t mean anything, because you can` t use it to distinguish what world you are in.

Hi Turing,

Glad to find someone with logical thought processes.
I've been getting lost in the mishmash of correctitude.

Thank you - much sir. Grand journeying.

Some say a lot and leave you empty - Some say little and leave you full.

Mark...

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164659 wrote:

Why should I suppose that?

To drive the point that evidences would not matter here. This, thus undermine your claim that it does matter. I quote from you:

Quote:

The weirder the possibility the more evidence is needed to make it a serious possibility

.

2 Replies

@TuringEquivalent,

Quote:
Originally Posted by north

http://www.philosophyforum.com/images/PHBlue/buttons/viewpost.gif

so Kennethamy

" is there " time , that really " is there " ?

Quote:

Yes, of course. Let me reassure you of it. I would try to do more, but, you know, time is short and life is fleeting.

time is short ....

inotherwords life is short

0 Replies

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;164793 wrote:

To drive the point that evidences would not matter here. This, thus undermine your claim that it does matter. I quote from you:

.

Evidence does not matter in a hypothetical reality...

---------- Post added 05-16-2010 at 11:32 PM ----------

north;165091 wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by north
so Kennethamy

" is there " time , that really " is there " ?

time is short ....

inotherwords life is short

well ya, because time is life... It is only our lives that make time real, and makes reality meaningful.

2 Replies

@Fido,

Fido;165134 wrote:

Evidence does not matter in a hypothetical reality...

---------- Post added 05-16-2010 at 11:32 PM ----------

well ya, because time is life... It is only our lives that make time real, and makes reality meaningful.

but does that make " time really exist " though ?

1 Reply

@Diogenes phil,

Hello, sorry for my bad english in the first place, I'm a spanish speaking person.

This is what I think about time.

What there is? The Universe. The universe is a single thing, one thing, the universe. This is important to have in mind. The universe is something that "changes", but this change is also the universe, there is no universe in the past or universe in the future, the universe is ONE and is now.

We are part of this universe, a very peculiar part, a part that can measure things. Our brains process a number os association per second and have something called memory. With this properties, our minds develop a way to interact with the matter around them, that way is to "understand" the surroundings, the rest of the universe. For this purpose our mind creates things called concepts using a social tool called lenguage, thus developing an analithic conciousness. All this fenomenon is constructed over the basis of memory.

In this fenomenon called conciousness there is the idea of time as a mesurerment (dividing the change in parts) and the perception of time as a subjective experience. This two "times" are not the same, but the two are created by our mind, do not exist outside of our mind.
There is no problem really, 'cos the things that are outside of our mind does not matter to us, we understand the universe from within.

But outside human thinking there is no time. All that there is in a universe that changes. The change is ONE and the "instant" in wich change happens is also ONE. the change is instantaneous and is always the same change, the change from the beggining til the present. The universe is the remaining of that change.

We have to talk about memory here, for it is important.
Memory is not a knowledge about or a seeing back in time. Memories are remainings of the change, like fossils are. This memories and fossils, the remainings of the change, exist now, not a second ago and not years ago, only exist now for now is all that there is. Our concepts of past an future are ways to explaine to us this remainings and proyect them, thus undestanding the rest of the universe, that is the way that our minds have to interact with the rest of things. Our memories are a certain neural activity that happens in the present, the fossils are things that exist in the present. And the "I" is a thing that exist in the present.

The universe is one, the change is one, and the change is instantaneous, it happens in ONE moment (without a counciousness like us to divide it in parts).

Sorry again, is very hard for me to write in english. I could not help writing a message this long. I hope it'll be comprensible.

P.D.: Another idea, having to do with special relativity, is that "c" (speedy of light) is the velocity of change. But better let this idea for other "time"

1 Reply

@north,

north;165142 wrote:

but does that make " time really exist " though ?

Not in my book... matter, which does exist because it exists with some permanence moves in time and space, neither of which exists in any sense of the word; but all together play a part in what we think of as existence...Time and space do not exist of themselves, but they do have a sort of dependent existent: time and space exist because of the matter in it, and both time and space are a reciprical of the other: Less space equals less time, and more space equals more time, so you can say time is space and space is time when neither has any actual existence... They are not moral forms, but they are meaning without being, and we often confuse meaning with being because being has meaning...The ultimate meaning of time is liife, and life is only time, and in terms of life time does not move at a constant rate... In human terms the end is always near, and with life goes meaning, so while matter may exist after death, time and space being only meaning will have no meaing along with matter...

We could never make sense of the world through the notion of cause and effect if we could not have before and after... Before does not cause after, but cause does result in effect...In fact, nothing makes sense without space and time, and though these are elements of our consciousness, they do make up reality to us, whether they can be said to exist as matter, having being or not... Does that make sense???

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;165234 wrote:

Not in my book... matter, which does exist because it exists with some permanence moves in time and space, neither of which exists in any sense of the word; but all together play a part in what we think of as existence...Time and space do not exist of themselves, but they do have a sort of dependent existent: time and space exist because of the matter in it, and both time and space are a reciprical of the other: Less space equals less time, and more space equals more time, so you can say time is space and space is time when neither has any actual existence... They are not moral forms, but they are meaning without being, and we often confuse meaning with being because being has meaning...The ultimate meaning of time is liife, and life is only time, and in terms of life time does not move at a constant rate... In human terms the end is always near, and with life goes meaning, so while matter may exist after death, time and space being only meaning will have no meaing along with matter...

We could never make sense of the world through the notion of cause and effect if we could not have before and after... Before does not cause after, but cause does result in effect...In fact, nothing makes sense without space and time, and though these are elements of our consciousness, they do make up reality to us, whether they can be said to exist as matter, having being or not... Does that make sense???

Hello again Fido,

Why is it that some here WANT time to have physical properties, when it is clearly, no more than a developed concept of the conscious mind?
I find this strange, that a measurement can be misinterpreted in such a way.

Thank you, and journey well, sir.

Mark...

1 Reply

@mark noble,

If you see the rings of a tree, do you see time or the product of time. Time is a result of an event, without an event we have no time. What really surprises me is that we cant imagine an existence without experiencing time.

If time is relevant to other forces why should time be dependent on us experiencing it. If other forces change and change time, why is our ability to alter time, so difficult.

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;165134 wrote:

Evidence does not matter in a hypothetical reality...

what the hell is a "hypothetical world"? There are possible worlds, and there is a technical meaning associated with it. Our world fits the bill of a possible world. What i am doing here is engaging in counterfactual reasoning. If we are in a different possible worlds( not this world), what would it be like, and in all cases, it would be the same as if we are not.

1 Reply

Does time really exist?

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