Does "time" really exist?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

A young child has no concept of time - to a young child there is only what is happening - a child has to be taught about the concept (idea) of time.

Well science seems to disagree with you on that as well


www.sciencenews.org...

One of the clearest examples of this early sense of time comes from a study that put 1-month-old babies in the dark. Every 20 seconds, a light came on for four seconds, causing the babies’ pupils to shrink. After learning the pattern, the babies’ eyes started anticipating the light: Their pupils shrank every 20 seconds, even when the light didn’t come on, scientists reported in 1972. Babies can even estimate durations, researchers have found. After watching a puppet of Sylvester the Cat jiggle while a tone played for certain lengths of time, 6-month-olds became bored and began looking at the puppet for less time. But when the tone unexpectedly lasted longer, the babies became interested again and looked longer, suggesting that the babies recognized the change in duration of the tone. These results and others serve as evidence that babies actually possess a “primitive” sense of time that improves and grows more sophisticated with age, French psychologist Sylvie Droit-Volet describes in a 2013 review in Neuropsychologia. Then, between the ages of 3 and 5, children grow more aware of time and its passing, particularly for mundane, everyday activities. But preschoolers still make some interesting perceptual errors, such as thinking that lights that shine brighter last longer, Droit-Volet writes. Around seven, kids start to show signs of a sophisticated sense of time that Droit-Volet calls “explicit time knowledge,” exhibiting skills such as overtly estimating how long things will take. Child

a reply to: greenreflections

you just now have defined a coordinate of a point.

Think of a dimension as a direction. A zero dimension structure is a single point. Can't go anywhere in a point. Add another dimension, or stack points together. Now you have a line. You can go left or right for infinity. Stack lines together and now you can go left, right, forward, or backwards for infinity. Stack these flat places together, and now you have up and down as well for infinity. In essence you have a huge, never ending box. The question is if time represents multiple boxes stacked together. Technically it could, but every other dimension allows us to go in two new directions. Time seems only to go in one direction, and is not allowing us to control the speed like the others do. I think time is to allow movement in the zero dimension, and does not constitute its own dimension. Does that make any more sense?

a reply to: bill3969

Think of a dimension as a direction.

thanks. I will give it a thought.

Time definitely exists. Now us humans have developed our own ways to keep time i.e. years, months, days, minutes, seconds. That is man made. Time in my eyes is the gauge we measure change. Time changes most things. We age as time moves on.

a reply to: Blackspider928

Somewhat right, I think. But chemical reactions are happening without human intervention, we derive age of, say, a mineral based on that know rate. Time was there whilst chemical reaction was going on. In your last sentence you contradict your own statement. Everything ages as time moves on. Things tend to break down, become chaotic dust. Thermodynamics says that.

cheers)

originally posted by: greenreflections
a reply to: bill3969

Think of a dimension as a direction.

thanks. I will give it a thought.

Dimensions you give definitions to sound like mathematical constructs, imo. Is there 1D space in nature? ZeroD I can see only if thinking of intersecting point of multiple 2D planes that form a volume. Time inside zeroD? I dont know. If there is, then it must be looped or something, but still affecting whatever is there inside zeroD point.

Since you have mentioned 'zeroD' term as an example and that nothing can move in it, would it make sense to conclude that nothing can escape 'the point' either, once 'inside'?
It is because I was recently thinking of universe as made of intersecting 2D field planes..Points of intersection might be something like zeroD point..))) No, really, singularities in this case might not be only mathematical construct but very real event. Only it is not a real 'point' --- that point still has volume, may be planck length across?

Interesting that you have mentioned the word 'stack' and 'structure' describing zero dimensional point and how dimensions added to form 3D universe.

Last note: Point must have xyz values if we discuss 'point', meaning point has coordinates on all three axises coincide to become one.

Relationship, connection, whatever you call it, between life and time is very important to formalize. Something does not ad up. Life seems to exist outside of time. It is affected by time, but appears to be in the middle between future and the past somehow managing to remain, as life, independent of time. One of major moments here is that life can only benefit from environmental changes that time brings to it and there is no loss. It is bombarded with radiation, collisions, temperature fluctuations, may face local extinction because of unacceptable surrounding conditions to some degree, but never destroyed completely. Isn't it strange?

Before I continue, board, this post as all of my posts is philosophical attempt to outline fundamental points of our being and give them my explanation. With limited physical background I naturally slip into existential kind of think process))) LOL since I enjoy talking of cosmos.

To be 'life' is taxing. Life is being destroyed all the time...ultimately when condition is balanced, it has to reproduce to sustain itself because time is moving that damaging surrounding (changing conditions) around life all the time and sustainability requires use of energy. It is easier to spread over multiple parts than to endlessly build single life entity. In me, for example, as I type right now...all sorts of bacteria I breath in or get on my skin, radiation, cold...to exist in this mess life has to able to benefit, as of... to reject effect on it that is potentially destructive and to become stronger when effect is fit to gracefully add to life complexity.

Sweet spot in a middle of the past and the future. That spot is bound to become very special)) It is 'now' (life) to which everything else is 'duration'.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
Time is a really strange idea. It's not like you can hold time in your hand and experience it like the way we all experience holding an apple.

It's not that strange.

"Time" is simply the encompassing idea/word that we use to refer to a group of basic units of measurement (seconds, minutes, hours, etc.).

You can't "experience" inches, centimeters, yards, or meters the way we all experience holding an apple either.

Units of measurement are simply descriptors.

originally posted by: redmage
It's not that strange.

"Time" is simply the encompassing idea/word that we use to refer to a group of basic units of measurement (seconds, minutes, hours, etc.).

You can't "experience" inches, centimeters, yards, or meters the way we all experience holding an apple either.

Units of measurement are simply descriptors.

Is it possible to communicate without the use of descriptors?

originally posted by: redmage

originally posted by: dfnj2015
Time is a really strange idea. It's not like you can hold time in your hand and experience it like the way we all experience holding an apple.

It's not that strange.

"Time" is simply the encompassing idea/word that we use to refer to a group of basic units of measurement (seconds, minutes, hours, etc.).

You can't "experience" inches, centimeters, yards, or meters the way we all experience holding an apple either.

Units of measurement are simply descriptors.

I think you can. Your body is aging. Wear factor. Aging is to lack of ability to sustain itself and 'keep in pace' with time flow remaining indefinitely pristine. You certainly can experience 'inches'. Instead of 'inches' you can think 'seconds' to feel time as material.

phenomenon of 'life' is truly fascinating. It is a system with no loss. Every bit of information it encounters is being added or dismissed but will never be able to destroy it. Life is eternal? I don't like words like 'eternity' but surely there is something to it when I think of phenomenon of 'life'.

In my posts I established for myself somewhat a logical connection between 'now' and 'duration'.
As a follow up, I am asking myself a question as how 'now' is possible when everything physical is in motion, including me.

'Duration' is not possible when you are in co moving frame of reference because everything around me moves in more or less in the same frame of reference or co-moving frame as me. How is it possible that 'time' exists even in the same frame where I am?

'Duration' is something that has to be experienced. 'Life' and sense of 'duration' are natural events under certain conditions, like BH event horizon surface for example.

a reply to: redmage

Time is not the fourth dimension it's the 4th, 5th, and 6th, and 'minutes' is not the measurement of time, Past, Present, and Future are. Minutes is a multilateral unit to express time that we already know of(Past, Present, Future) in correlation to each other. It would be pointless if there was no future, but something was 15 minutes away, or happened 15 minutes ago. If there is no past, there is no concept of time, thus, how long is a minute? And if it's constantly "Present" no time is passing at all. It's only in conjoined unity they work at all conceptually.

Seeing as time is the measured process of entropy, tues it does exist. Atoms decay, people die, stars explode and we call this 'time'
The Now is the frame rate at which the picture advances across the screen, and the Past and Future are like Speakin of what's happened in a movie and what might be to come.

One could speak all day of how since its the only thing ever happening, the Now is all hat exists. But our existence, more than physical, is conceptual, and so to doubt the validity of concepts such as past and future is ridiculous.

The concept of time itself is like referring to the entire duration of the movie.the movie exists for we a experience it in the Now. The Past has happened regardless if it exists as a valid concept or not, and the future will happen, or it won't, exactly has been determined. The movie we call life. Existence. And we are here and the movie is going forward and one day must come to an end. Time is how we relate this and make use of it.

Entropy is the decay generated by the continual movement of the 'now' the eternal traveller. Were the present to somehow stop, entropy would to and everything would be seen as still and silent. The silence always is there but is very hard to miss as travellers in the now moment.

a reply to: greenreflections

"Duration"

I have contemplated this for a long "time". I call it the duration of consciousness. It's what we experience as the moment. That moment can range from a second to 10 billion years or more. In quantum time, time does not exist.

a reply to: dfnj2015

i think time is the mental counterpart of movement a physical thing i think all things physical have their mental counterparts in what they represent like a tool and its uses? they r married

a reply to: daniel2sxc

can explain why ppl feel different times and why there is 1 time that is earth time 24hrs and stuff

originally posted by: MacK80
a reply to: redmage

how long is a minute?

A minute is a 'duration' took for me transitioning from A environment into B environment.


I am thinking of life is being 'static' to the flow of time. Even tho Einstein said it does not matter who is moving.

a reply to: daniel2sxc

Hey that's brilliant!

Where one goes another may follow

originally posted by: redmage

originally posted by: dfnj2015
Time is a really strange idea. It's not like you can hold time in your hand and experience it like the way we all experience holding an apple.

It's not that strange.

"Time" is simply the encompassing idea/word that we use to refer to a group of basic units of measurement (seconds, minutes, hours, etc.).

You can't "experience" inches, centimeters, yards, or meters the way we all experience holding an apple either.

Units of measurement are simply descriptors.

Time is just a word and nothing more. That is my point. inches, centimeters, yards, or meters are the same way. We have representations for reality. Our words are not the reality they represent. This is my original point. In reality, there are no arbitrary discrete objects or moments of time. Everything is connected to everything else and time is one continuous stream. Nothing in reality ever suggests time ever stops. We only measure it that way.