Time simply does not exist

So, the essence of time is FUNDAMENTALLY what it is? That's what I suggested earlier is the nature of metaphysics. You can't exclude it because--according to my definition of metaphysics--you introduced it.

Apologies for not answering your points directly or answering cryptically. My Derridean excursion was made to suggest that at one level, Shakespeare's "message" relies on the contrasting of "time as change" versus privileging "unchanging eternity", yet an another level the writer reaches the conclusion that such "eternity" is ultimately relative to the existence of an observer (with eyes to see) which is logically unlikely to be "eternal"....hence a Derridean aporia or paradox. By examining such a possible deconstruction of contrasted oppositions we might conclude that both words "time" and "existence" are embedded in a shifting (con)textual value system, and to talk about the "existence of time" as an abstraction is likely to be vacuous since the context is being excluded.

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i suppose that i am challenging the idea that time is simply an aspect of space

Space. The space we perceive has 3 dimensions. If you move along one of the dimensions, lets say straight up, you are only moving in that one dimension. In the two others you have a fixed position.

If the space we perceived was 2 dimensional, the same movement in the 3rd dimension would not be perceived by us. Instead it would be perceived as change happening in the first and second dimensions; inside the space we can perceive.

Duration, or time, can perhaps be thought of as movement in the 4th dimension. It is a direction of movement, and like in the example above, we are not perceptually aware of this movement, because it is possible to have a fixed position in all 3 spatial dimensions and still have movement in the 4th.

If our perception was such that it could perceive 4 dimensional movement directly, we would perceive the sun over the sky as a long glowing arc from horizon to horizon. From a 3 dimensional perspective reality would look like a movie where each frame was put on top of the previous one without it first being removed until all the frames showed at once. But in an awareness with more dimensions, there would also be a direction in the space we were able to perceive for all this fourth dimensional movement to happen.

So in a way, time is space. It is just the direction of space we cannot see.

Scientists propose that clocks measure the numerical order of material change in space, where space is a fundamental entity; time itself is not a fundamental physical entity. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html#jCp

(PhysOrg.com) -- The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is not only deeply intuitive, it also plays an important role in our mathematical descriptions of physical systems. For instance, we define an object’s speed as its displacement per a given time. But some researchers theorize that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity that flows on its own, along with the idea that time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, are incorrect. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a view that corresponds more accurately to the physical world: time as a measure of the numerical order of change.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html#jCp

In two recent papers (one published and one to be published) in Physics Essays, Amrit Sorli, Davide Fiscaletti, and Dusan Klinar from the Scientific Research Centre Bistra in Ptuj, Slovenia, have described in more detail what this means. No time dimension They begin by explaining how we usually assume that time is an absolute physical quantity that plays the role of the independent variable (time, t, is often the x-axis on graphs that show the evolution of a physical system). But, as they note, we never really measure t. What we do measure is an object’s frequency, speed, etc. In other words, what experimentally exists are the motion of an object and the tick of a clock, and we compare the object’s motion to the tick of a clock to measure the object’s frequency, speed, etc. By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence. This view doesn’t mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time. So while 4D spacetime is usually considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, the researchers’ view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, as they say, the universe is “timeless.”

Are the 3 dimensions you mention in your thought experiment a product of our perception, or of space, or as tools of perception in relation to space?

Why stop at time as a 4th dimension? Why not make it 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8?

"Observation and tools"...i suppose that is part of what i am trying to get at -- "the dimensions" whether you want to count up to 3 or 4, etc. are tools or mental adaptations with which to make our relationship with our environment manageable. But there is no reason to assume that they are valuable as representations of that environment.

Everything I can perceive also has movement in 4D. That is why objects seem to change. If there were no movement in 4D, objects would exist in every possible way they could simultaneously. An object that moved to a different location in 3D space would not vacate the previous location. It would seem to us like it occupied both.

while 4D spacetime is usually considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, the researchers’ view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, as they say, the universe is “timeless.”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html#jCp

You are yet to clarify an argument against my view, as the arrow of time does nothing besides showing us a direction in the alignment of change which is quite all right once you need one to have an axis of events unfolding...exactly what I termed as the "spacing of space"...

Razzleg wrote:

"Observation and tools"...i suppose that is part of what i am trying to get at -- "the dimensions" whether you want to count up to 3 or 4, etc. are tools or mental adaptations with which to make our relationship with our environment manageable. But there is no reason to assume that they are valuable as representations of that environment.

If they weren't valuable as "representations of that environment" we would be unable to navigate on the sea, to make discoveries about distant objects, to travel to the moon and a hundred other things that we are able to do.

I am not saying that this is how it is. To me it's just another way to think about time, to get an alternative spin on it that might shake something loose.

I found it easier to understand the concept of this by going from 2D to 3D. The depth axis is at a 90 degree angle to the length axis. The third dimension, the height axis is at a 90 degree angle to both the dimensions below.

In two recent papers (one published and one to be published) in Physics Essays, Amrit Sorli, Davide Fiscaletti, and Dusan Klinar from the Scientific Research Centre Bistra in Ptuj, Slovenia, have described in more detail what this means. No time dimension They begin by explaining how we usually assume that time is an absolute physical quantity that plays the role of the independent variable (time, t, is often the x-axis on graphs that show the evolution of a physical system). But, as they note, we never really measure t. What we do measure is an object’s frequency, speed, etc. In other words, what experimentally exists are the motion of an object and the tick of a clock, and we compare the object’s motion to the tick of a clock to measure the object’s frequency, speed, etc. By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence. This view doesn’t mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time. So while 4D spacetime is usually considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, the researchers’ view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, as they say, the universe is “timeless.”

Perhaps in the quote above, i've dipped my finger in the wrong end of the distinction between representation as imitation and representation as analogy.