Is there really such thing as time?

Funny, a friend of mine said something very similar:
"I feel like I'm in this river of time. I'm in the middle of the river, being swept downstream. I can move a little to the left or right by making different choices in my life, but I'm still being swept down this stream of time. Nothing can be done to stop it."

Swift, your last statement triggered a thought. Time is not something that exists independent of changing/moving "things" (I put things in quotes because I think there are only processes, not things-in-process: when we examine any object, we find it to be a process itself). Time/change/process are inextricable features of everything. There could not be, therefore, time before the universe; time IS an inherent feature of the universe; no universe, no time. Is that what you were implying?

Sorry to be so practical, but yes, there is such
a thing as time. I have just spent the last 2 days in
Niagara Falls. I had to plan for this time, pay for
this time, experience this time, and then drive home from this time......and now I am exhausted!

....All the while I was aware that "the present is eternity".....pity that
the hotelier didn't recognize this fact. He persisted in charging me for linear time"! The casino was another matter........

Shepaints, you know of course, that just because our everyday notion of "time" works, and, indeed, is indispensable, that does not make it a valid philosophical conception. It MAY, however, show that theoreical, intellectual philosophy is not as useful for our life as are our more naive cultural constructions.

JLN,

Great point. I think that would make a great thread. Is philosophy useful? Why or why not?

Yeah, would you set it up?

JLN: sorry I couldn't reply sooner!

I agree with everything you said especially:


but regarding the following quote:


The pre-bang universe is already investigated for PROCESS. You just haven't taken it to PB mode.

I think of it as follows, analogies, metaphors, et al.

A Process will resolve or morph itself into another process usually one of greater complexity; it becomes the breeding ground for others to follow. Consider the highlights: a so-called big bang occurs, eventually supernovae spew forth the elements necessary for life on a planet many light-years removed culminating (for lack of a better example) into creatures like us who strive to understand it. All fluctuations of PROCESS!

Every such "progression" contains its own momentum, its "torque" in a manner of speaking. This to me is equivalent to Time. When such progressions "interbreed" according to quantum probabilities we behold its utlimate kaliescopic manifestation in the great Cosmic Fugue we all marvel at.

"Fugue" is imo, the most perfect word to describe the cosmos because it denotes all ITS processes working together; it's been described this way many times. We live in the field of time and time can be very strange according to the processes we encounter. If I did believe in God, it would be as the composer of the fugue which started everything; a kind of Bachian PRELUDE which continues playing adding new themes of complexity emanating from its previous ones and culminating in that moment of ultimate silence or "nothing" if you like; it's Power Source to restart the fugue. Time cannot evaporate; it remains as precondition of the next incarnation. Somewhat in league with Buddhistic thought is it not?

Consider also that the super complexities of the cosmos create incongruities in its fabric. This becomes ever more apparent as our insights into its "disorder" increase. What a fallout from its Greek and Medieval versions! If it FALLS by imperfection it may rise for the same reason because not EVERYTHING is liquidated including time which may still exist as a kind of temporary comatose afterglow what I would term as "compost radiation" potently GENETIC. In these scenarios, time NEVER disappears!

I could write more but I think I've bored you enough. Thanks for the inquiry!

Greetings all.

Not too swift highlights a key issue of "order and disorder". This in turn is related to the word "really" in the original question.

As "sentient beings" we relate to changes of state (perceived as either internal or external) by virtue of segmenting such states as "patterns" or " orderings". Such IS "reality" - with "language" representing an abstraction of such orderings, and also the mechanism by which we socially interact in our efforts to "predict and control".
Hence "time" is an essential aspect of of "social reality" ...and I have argued that such "reality" may indeed be the ONLY meaningful one with respect to debate. However, once we move to the "ineffable" which transcends lanuage, and question the a priori status of the "self" and its inclination to "control", we can reject the by product we call "time" .

Pragmatically of course we are bound by social "time", and conflicts arise when different cultural attitudes are taken to "urgency" as in the manana syndrome.

A human ages, but some of memories do not age.

I suppose that it is not surprising that a casino has none of the usual indicators that help to position ourselves in time. With artificial lighting and no windows, one is not aware of the time of day. Time is measured there more by the number of games one plays or the dollars slipping through one's fingers.

Time is a rough concept to get a handle on. I am going only to mention a few things about time for us to ruminate on.

Time is real. ( Probably factual, that is if we exist)

Time is related to the speed of light. (by definition, results in the "twins paradox") (if you could travel faster than time (or light) you could sire your father or bear your mother)

The speed of light is related to the masses affecting it, and the distances separating them. The "red shift" and "black hole" theories)

So the speed of time is also related to mass. (Now it gets interesting)

Our observation of distance is related to the speed of time.(and more interesting)

Our perception of light is dependent upon the wave length of light which is related to the speed of time at our location. ("Freunhofer" lines in a spectrum)

Einsteins Relativity Theories define the speed of light as a constant. This upon close examination turns out to be a definition that depends on the speed of time being variable. ( Uh-Oh)

If one wishes to define the speed of time as being constant then the speed of light varies. (Takes care of paternity problems but is it real )

Neither time nor light speed nor color nor distance will bear any sort of correspondence with each other except in relation to a specific observer.
It should be noted that an observer must necessarily inhabit a specific location relative to both mass and time.

I have been puzzling over these relationships for a long time (Relatively Speaking)

If you search the things I put in quotation marks you will find enough confuse you even further. Good Luck, M

A person ages, memories do not get old.

Thank you philosophers for sharing your
knowledge.......I will sit on the sidelines
and quietly applaud!

Look at the limitations of language. Our thread's title "Is there really such a THING as time?" makes little sense, literally considered. We might, however, ask "Does our notion of time have any objective referent?" or "What do we mean by time?".

JL,

I used to think that time was simply another human construction but the evidence of the necessary sequential process involved in everything from the world of quantum mechanics to the formation of galaxies has convinced me otherwise. (even god had to have a place to put Adam and Eve before He made them)

So I have noticed that the speed of time varies. This seems to happen, and there are several experiments that seem to show this.

This leads me back to assuming that a unit of time is a purely arbitrary description, which happens to be defined by Earthlings.

But time exists, But a second, or a meter, or a light year is only a defined unit of something else.

What else .

Pondering these relationships has kept me awake for some time

AkaMechsmith, yes, it would seem that for physics and for the person running late for an appointment time is "real." But does the single concept (time) refer to both situations?

So is there an unchanging inner being that travels through time, or does memory simply construct an image, an illusion, like a series of runway lights going on and off giving the illusion of something moving? Is this germane to the discussion?

Even part of your body does not exist at the same instant; e.g., a signal from your tip of finger take time to be felt in your brain. I wonder what the linear time in a microscopic situation could mean in such an ordinary situation.

I must confess that since I'm new i didn't really have the patience to read through the whole debate, but the thread itself looked interesting. By the way, there is a whole journal devoted to question about time alone, it's called "Kromo" and is put out by the Univ. of Calgary. Anyway, I thought to add on some of my own thoughts.
A. Time certainly has a serious connection with space and other conceptions of the universe. so asking about one is asking about the other. What I think interesting in this, is that in string theory now thought of, they are using 11 dimensions, three usual space, 7 folded space, and only one of time. that is, the conception is that you can easily multiply the dimensions of space but not of time. I don't know exactly wy, though of course there are probably good mathematical reasons for this distinction.
B. On a more earthly level, and if we are willing too trust our senses to the degree that they aren't making up everything completely, but have some connection to the universe (though of course not a one-on-one connection), we certainly perceive that there is change. regardless of whether this change is conceived of as in a dimension or not as in it, the change is still there, and that is, I think, what most people will call time.
C. A different question is the consciousness of time in our mind and the time we are passing through. Although as parts of the universe, we are changing like everything else, there is the questions of how we can perceive this change. Of course, the perception is completely hinged on memory; but the memory is not only in consciousness, because you can regard any thing that stays the same as it was to have memory of its previous being. I think the consciousness works in the same way - so long as the most of it stays the same (and i think that whatever you do, most of it will), it is the same consciousness regardless of the passage of time. By the way, i heard not long ago of a trial of somebody that abused a girl 13 years ago. The judge had an interesting disscusion about whether this is actually the same person that did the crime, or is this already somebody else. of course, on a logical level there isn't any difference between a week and 13 years...
Maybe peoplke wrote some of this already. If so, I'm sorry

time has to be real
time has to be real or everything would happen at once or nothing would ever happen.