Define Time

a reply to: EternalSolace

The space between one point and another.

Ie: thing, place, event etc

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: here4this
Time - an illusionary measurement designed to measure mankind's mortality .

does the clock still tick if no one is around to watch it?

The universe's own clock ticks regardless

It takes the earth 24 hours to go around the sun.
Does it take 24 hours for every planet to go around the sun?

a reply to: EternalSolace

Time and gravity are dependent upon each other. So if this sentient being had no understanding of time, "it" would have no understanding of gravity. Or perhaps the opposite. Omnipresence is an interesting subject. If anyone in any religion, or non-religion for that matter, believes in an eternal afterlife then this undoubtedly would exist in a dimension above ours where time does not exist. So to take this a step further, lets say for a moment the after life does exist and it is eternal...you are already there. And being here, now, is part of a concept that we as humans don't know, can't understand, or comprehend beyond our existence.

All of this IMHO of course.

-Ninja

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: EternalSolace

The space between one point and another.

Ie: thing, place, event etc

I think the definition of this is distance. Time is the measurement of an object in movement in space measured by an arbitrary unit.The second for example.

Still better to shout out "last orders" though.

a reply to: EternalSolace

Logical thought, could be defined as linear thought and could be a definition, of time, as without the linear flow of time it would be impossible to have logical thought . It would even be impossible to maintain a stable external environment, and the laws of entropy would not work.

a reply to: EternalSolace

Time is cause (past) and effect (future).

originally posted by: arpgme
a reply to: EternalSolace

Time is cause (past) and effect (future).

So if there was a beginning like the big bang then everything that is happening is still moving according to the first boom.
The big bang was the cause and this that is right now is the effect.
So there is no one controlling anything?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

The effect is us existing. We create more causes for effects through our actions. The mind is where we can decide for a physical action.

I've been following the thread, even though I've neglected to respond as of late. There are a lot of good answers, and great content that I've wanted to give careful thought about.

I believe that TzarChasm really had a response that stood out to me. TsarChasm said, "First, we would have to specify exactly how a 'non-linear lifeform' experiences the passage of time."


When I think of a non-linear, non-corporeal, life form, I also think of a sentient being that has had no past or present, but has always just existed to learn. The only goal would be the accumulation of knowledge and the preservation of self. To such a being, I don't think the passage of time would even be real. As in, time does not exist.

I've still been searching for that quote I mentioned on the first page. But I cannot find it anywhere. But it makes so much sense. At any rate, the more I think on what exactly is the definition of time, the more I come to the conclusion that time only exists because humanity has given it purpose. Humanity has invented a unit of measurement that doesn't really exist. So in trying to define it to an entity that has no concept of time, it seems crazy.

a reply to: EternalSolace

But if time doesn't exist, why would he need to worry about perserving himself? If he is non-linear (no order past to future) and non-corporeal (no body to die) then what is there to perserve? He would already be eternal/immortal.

a reply to: EternalSolace

Rhythm, without it, there is no order.

See life as a composition of music, without rhythm, the composition of music collapses.
Rhythm in life is breathing, in and out, day and night, light and dark, doing and resting, summer and winter, birth and death.

a reply to: arpgme

Simple curiosity? Imagine the questions we'd also have. I'm sure some would seem rather mundane to them as well. I love these types of discussion. Isn't it fascinating how time is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, but no one here gave the the official definition or gave their own version of the official definition? Everyone has their own unique way of defining time.

Such a beautiful, but horrible, thing time is... for something I don't believe really exists.

Time can be looked at from the perspective of an individual sentience, you definitely have memories that are of your past, and also you can expect there to be a future. So, I might go and travel to the "future" and then come back to the "present" - If I look back now, it was in my experiential past that I went and traveled to the "future"...

So, the "past" is what you have done, and the future constitutes the things that you are about to do, whatever they may be.

originally posted by: EternalSolace
We as humans, have a rather unique perspective on time. Because we have a linear existence, we tend to have a fairly simple grasp on past, present, and future.

However, if you were to make contact with a non-corporeal non-linear life form, and were asked to define time, how would you describe or define time? Remember, this lifeform has no knowledge of past, present or future. No understanding of preceding, or following. No concept of a unit of measurement in regard to time. Also remember, this lifeform is sentient. It has intelligence. It has only the basic means to communicate through a spoken language.

How would you define time?

I hate time.

Well kind of. Im not good at keeping to time. I get lost in time a lot. Im late or rushing a fair bit too.

Time has always confused me. I used to ask my parents why we count time. This is probably how I would explain it to another being. The mayans started their long count. We now have other calenders we stick to. Its not even 2015, really.

And tonight Im going to lose an hour which Im never amused about I dont get how we can time travel across the globe, effectivley fly into the future or the past. Time isnt even a concrete thing but people think it is. The further away from Earth you get, the faster time moves. People who live their life in a high rise building can even experience this but on a tiny scale.

Time is an illusion. I realised this completly when I met Dr Dimitri and I saw time bend and could see things happen in this time curve before they actually moved into the Now and happened. It was like a huge curved line of time and looking up or down it you could see what was about to happen or what had just happened.

Its like everything is happening all at once we just experience it once we move through it. You can maybe call this 'it' that we move through 'time'.

Counting out time helps us make sense of and plan and prepare for our world or that next phase of 'time' when we move through it.

The stars help us keep time. The procession of the Equinox. The quantum clocks that are set to the pulse of a neutron star. Remember the stars.

Time is strange but its a way of understanding how we move through our lives, our world, our universe.

I think that your thought experiment is fallacious. I cannot imagine how a 'non-corporeal','non-linear' (whatever that means) agent, agent A, can have no understanding of 'time', yet is able to converse with another agent, agent B, using language. There must of had to have been a moment in time when agent A had no knowledge of language, and subsequently cultivated the knowledge of how to communicate. This is already a process which presupposes time. Either the former agent's mind is a tablua rasa, in which case there is no knowledge, or if agent A can communicate then it must follow that agent A has an idea of what time is. We cannot experience anything without presupposing time.

In terms of answering the question, time is not a concept which we abstract from experience. It is an a priori form of intuition as Kant had already maintained, it is incapable of being defined, as any attempts at definition -- such as; past, present, and future -- are already concepts which presuppose time.

a reply to: logical1ty

Corporeal: To have a body.

Linear: To progress from one stage to another in a single series of steps; sequential.

A non-coporeal, non-linear, lifeform I suspect would be an entity without a body, that does not progress in any sequential way. In other words, I mean an entity that's existed without a begining or end.

I cannot imagine how a 'non-corporeal','non-linear' (whatever that means) agent, agent A, can have no understanding of 'time', yet is able to converse with another agent, agent B, using language.

So sentience is only for those with linguistic capability? I would like to believe that there are other ways of communication than what is native to humanity.

I still believe that time is a human invention and that you're right when you say that it can't be defined. Time is such a subjective thing.

a reply to: EternalSolace

I am aware of what non-corporeal and non-linear mean, the reason for me claiming "whatever that means", is that these characteristics are inconsistent with your thought experiment. Time is not an empirical process, there exists no time process. It is necessarily true that every event and process occurs at a given moment in time and that every process takes a certain time. In contrast, time itself does not occur at a certain point in time and does not itself take a certain time, as these concepts 'certain point' and certain time' already presuppose time. That's why I found your thought experiment to be inconsistent , "if you were to make contact with a non-corporeal non-linear life form" to make contact would presuppose time as making contact with agent A is an event in time. It is logically impossible, a contradiction, to conceive of contacting agent A ("an entity that's existed without a beginning or end") at a moment in time, if agent A is not in time.

I cannot (here I mean a logical 'cannot' and not a psychological 'cannot') conceive of a world that is not in time, a world where nothing happens either before, after the same time as, or after something else. As to maintain that something occurs is by implication to maintain that it occurs at a certain point in time. In addition, I never claimed that sentience is only for those with linguistic capacity, neither was it implied in my argument, that's just a strawman. What was meant was, either agent A is intelligent and can speak a language or agent A is not intelligent and cannot speak a language. If agent A is intelligent and can speak a language then agent A must have learned to acquire knowledge. Agent A has learned how to acquire knowledge and this exists as a process in time. Thus, if agent A is intelligent and can speak a language then this exists as a process in time.

Either P or ~P, If P then Q, Q and R, therefore If P then R

My aim was to show that your thought experiment is logically inconsistent. Agent A must have an understanding of time, or agent A's mind is a tabula rasa, in which case we cannot possibly define time.

a reply to: EternalSolace

To me time is a reference tool used as for the measurement of specific events and experience's incorporating the environment and emotions relative to that event as it happens. As Einstein stated it is all relative to the observer, time is how we as witnesses, construct our development through our own experiences and observations and use them as 'sign posts' to construct a linear path of remembrance .

a reply to: EternalSolace

EternalSolace, I think I really get where you are coming from. You are asking, really, what "time" actually is. Because we all experience it, we even define everything in terms f it. All of physics refers eventually to time. Every physics equation has, somewhere, within it, one of the variables t=time. But we really don't know what it is.

So as a thought experiment, to try to ask the question in a new way, you introduce the imaginary non-linear being. Well, I think non-linearity is something that one can experience outside of incarnation at higher states of consciousness. But that's not something I can in any way prove or back up. I just think so. And from that perspective I think we can see causality going in any direction. We can see an outcome and then work "backwards" to the cause (or numerous possible causes) that lead to that outcome. From that perspective we can see that there is not one time stream but many. All the possible realities that can be ARE. I think in that state it is possible to "zoom out" and see the whole universe from beginning to end in one snapshot. And for us to communicate with such a being would require it to agree, even momentarily, to share our limited, slow linearity.

So, to answer your question, I think time is the illusory space, between cause and effect, that we are, at this level of consciousness, bound to experience. We use our movement through space (also illusory) to correlate our various perceptions of time. We agree, for example that a "day" is the duration it takes for the earth to rotate once on it's axis and then divide that "time" into agreed segments. But our subjective perception of time is actually fluid. Though we pretend very hard it is not and use the ticking of a clock to prove this to ourselves.

If someone else was not bound to our consensus reality and perceived time differently or not at all then their experience of life would be wildly different from ours indeed.

Perhaps the best, in-depth analysis of time (from admittedly a very metaphysical/ spiritual standpoint) that I have ever come across is this kind of a Socratic dialogue between a guy and his "inner-truth" to be found here:
zingdad.com...

It's actually worthwhile to begin at the beginning and read all the material on space, time densities and dimensions... if you have the "time". It starts here:
zingdad.com...

I think you'll find he is asking all these kinds of questions... and answering them in quite a compelling fashion too!