Is Time real? What is Time?

This is a discussion I have heard many times and felt that I would bring back to the table here at ATS.

What exactly is time?

Is time a real thing? Or just our perception of the spinning of the earth?

If time is real, can we turn it back? Can we move it forward?

As far as I am concerned, TIME is the ultimate mystery.


Time is on my side, yes it is.
Jasn

I believe time is a measurement, an instrument of the human race.
Who knows maybe in another world or in a different dimension there is a race using something more advanced then time. I could be wrong, I could be right
only time will tell.

If you think about how we measure time we are in fact measuring distance. A year is a distance the earth travels, an hour is an amount that the earth rotates, so is a minute and a second. Even atomic clocks take their measurements from tiny vibrations.

So if you think about it, at least the way we measure it, time is really not about time at all, but rather a measure or counting of distances. However, this method of tracking distance has created an illusion of time, an illusion that billions buy into on a daily basis. Our lives are run based on this illusion called time, it is ingrained into every part of society.

To really fairly examine time, one must remove themselves from the type of thinking that buys into and accepts the illusion. When thinking about time we must forget about seconds, hours, years, minutes, months, etc...

So then, what is time? Thinking about it from a cosmic perspective, (the big bang), one could decide that all things had a beginning. One could also decide that all things therefore must have an end. Everything in between is a set of events or moments in which things simply exist and do whatever is it that they do. But then what happens at the end? And what happened before the beginning? Do things repeat themselves, is time but a circle or cycle of ever repeating events? Somehow this doesn't make sense either, for the cycle must have been started somehow.

I have thought about this issue a lot, and it is surely one of the greatest philosophical challenges of our time, no pun intended. My conclusions are this: either time is beyond human comprehension, or time doesn't even exist. I'm leaning towards the latter choice of nonexistence, I feel that everything exists in one single moment not defined by a beginning or end, but it simply just is.

A great man once said, "Time, Mr Freeman..what is time?" Time is an illusion I believe. Every happens in the moment, but we use "time" for our own "good". It helps us create a history, a sense of individualism and belonging. Time creates good memories, bad memories, and time produces grief. An illusion of the mind? I think so!

Time is yet another illusion created by man to keep you from being in the moment. If you really want to move outside time and space to have a go at the reality of spaceless timelessness, then take a deep breath in and and out. Some where between the in breath and the out breath is
THIS moment.

Someones been reading Eckhart Tolle! Completely agree.

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[edit on 6-8-2007 by sanctum]

I would compare time to the pathway that leads from one point to another. Time means a great deal to human civilization. It's one of the main factors in measuring information or events here on Earth. However, our time is only specific to our location since it is based on our Sun. This makes it very dificult to rely on our timescale in any other location, and thus undependable.

Right?

I think thats true. Didn't some astronauts take a clock into space and it came back a few seconds different?

Perhaps the nature if time is very different in other galaxies throughout the Universe.

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[edit on 6-8-2007 by sanctum]

I think my most appropriate definition of time would be the span between this cycle and the next.

I too see time as we see it as an illusion. However, why would/does the spinning of the planet (or the distance as a poster put earlier) cause us to "age" and our bodies to wear down?

I guess overall, the only time that matters to us is when we begin and when we end. But what if we have no true beginning or end? It's a paradox.


Jasn

I think of time as movement. Imagine if the whole universe stood still... would we still be transversing time? I think not.

Would we all end? Or would we just pause until things started spinning again?

edit: to avoid being a 1 line post, be sure to read my sig as that's probably the single funniest response to a thread I have ever seen.


jasn

[edit on 5-8-2007 by SimiusDei]

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[edit on 6-8-2007 by sanctum]

Time is a manufactured concept.
it is no part of the universe around us.
ask a tree what time it is. ask a rock.
it is our perception of "time" that holds us
back. all things happen at the same "time"
our linear perception is what keeps us on this
ball of mud.when we learn to reove ourselves
from this Linear "time". great things become
possible. our rockets can not push us off this
rock. remove it from time, the earth rolls on
bring it back presto it's in space.
when they say "time is our greatest enemy"
they have no idea. we cripple ourselves with
this concept.

I must say, you just confused the hell out of me. I must be more tired than I realized.

Could you dumb this down a bit for me at this late hour?


Jasn

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[edit on 6-8-2007 by sanctum]

I'd say Time is Change. (At least from a human perspective).

When anything Changes, it "moves ahead" in time.
If time itself would stop, as I see it, the universe would freeze.

I do not see "real" time as something laid out on a line, saying 2 hours ago, 1 minute ago, five years ago, etc.

I see time as change, or better said, someone's ''progress'' in changing in our perceivable existence.

To put it simple, imho:
Time is very real, but it's not a ticking clock that can be spun backwards and forwards, making people walking backwards from work to their house, digging out full meals with spoons, etc.

Time is the changing of everything within this universe.

If in what we know as existence, would be absent of *EVERYTHING*.
Then there would be no time, as there would be no change.

[edit on 6/8/07 by -0mega-]

There is the measurement of time as a cycle and many different cycles from atom vibrations (atomic clock) to Earth orbiting the Sun, etc. In the end, all are second order derivatives of a greater concept, and that is "Time" , a first-order derivative, that is the only Dimension deriving energy, light, gravity, resonances and vibrations and forces that make up everything.
It also puts a clamp-down on everything so there is a limit or barrier with everything also. One can never get to Abolute Zero, Extreme Heat, pass the speed of light, non-movement of atoms, or end everything. It is out of the question and not allowed. In the Set of Everything, Time ends up being the entire Set setting up the limits so that nothing ever gets too extreme or radical in the Grand Scheme of Design. And it is for the Good, because otherwise it be total mayhem, and cause and event would have no meaning or anything else. Time gives Meaning to Existence.

Time is the measurement of thought.

If you go to another star system, you're still going to only live the average 70-120-year lifespan (sans ET life-extension tech), regardless of how they measure time there.

Time, though not defineable by our conventional understandings, seems to be just as real as the reality it governs. Slam your head into a brick wall, I'm thinking 100% of the time the head is not going peacefully through it (ghost-style), but an abrupt injury will definitely result. Point is, the wall is real, for all intents and purposes. Even if our conscious reality could be proven beyond doubt's shadow to be a Matrix-like simulation, it still operates under the guidance of the clock. As finite beings, we require this non-existent force to administrate a balanced structure to our endless and random comings and goings.

If the sun is going to rise and set at the same rate of movement each day, creating usable light for a period, then vanishing, leaving bitter darkness for a period, and we have to find food and water and shelter for survival, then certainly a system for determining the arrival and departure of the sun is both necessary and real.

When one can no longer die is when one no longer has need for survival.
"Time" will likely not be discussed at that Frequency.

i was taught time is an enigma of mans interpretaion, fairly precise, used to track human, world or stellar events.

Time is real as far as I can see it. It is the name given for the effect, of the speed limit, of information. Effects are real even though not solid like an object, then again when you touch and object you are not really touching the object, just the forces from the energy that makes up the object, giving you the effect that a solid object is there.

Einstein said that the make of the universe was space-time, he wouldn't include time if it didn't exist. I understand why time was important to him but, it's explanation is difficult for me to pass on, if you really want to know, just go to a web site or take out a book about Einstein's theories.

From what I get from this thread, all of you who say time isn't real and that it is an illusion, don't seem to understand what time really is. I can see how you all think of time, and I see why you can consider it an illusion but, the reality is, you are all looking at what time is wrong. If you really want to properly debate if time is real or not, you should really read up a back round on physics.

Just my two cents.

[edit on 6-8-2007 by halfmask]

Also time is measured in our own bodies with our internal clock.
It has been suggested that this is merely a psychological function due to us being surrounded by time in forms of watches, clocks etc..
But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that we do have an inbuilt function that measures time.
For example a person goes to bed at the same time every night & gets up the same time for many years. Now when he is sleeping what measures time when the brain is in REM sleep? How does the body know when to awake?
Also under hypnosis subjects have been programmed to do something at a certain time, it has been shown that our timing is so precise that it's within points of a second. So we know the brain has the instruction & responds but what regulates the time in this instance?
Time is the 4th dimension & we are all synchronised to the same clock, it's what brings order to the chaos.