Some more to think about …
Ah, Steel Man...in keeping with the Captain’s thoughts....
1. Time is the distance between the beginning of a state and the end of it.
2. Time, like mathematics, is a logical construct, a concept devised to intellectually organize a valid phenomenon. Asking when time began is like asking when mathematics began.
3. Cosmologically speaking, the present is a point that spans no time, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Like the boundary between properties, how else could we define what is “past” and what is “future”?
4. Time doesn’t move at all. Instead, we can view it as a sort of ruler laid out over the whole of events, both known and unknown, past and future, as an aid to our comprehension of their relationship to each other. As we don’t yet know when the first event occurred, it has been useful to select a date such as the designated birth year of Christ and place the ends of two rulers at that point, one measuring the sequence of events before it and the other measuring the sequence of events afterward. If we discover “more past,” we lengthen that ruler; as “more future” happens, we lengthen the other one.
5. We already do. Even now, we don’t really witness events as they occur. We witness them afterward, when the light and sound waves reach us. If we could actually travel faster than the speed of light, we could, at least in science fiction, race away from the earth, then stop and watch the past happening. Hearing it would present other problems, complicated by the fact that sound waves are not known to travel through space. But even if they did, light and sound travel at such differing speeds that we would see the past, but not hear it until much later. So, in theory, we might find ourselves in the position of watching Julius Caesar speaking to his Senate with the voice of an early cave-woman scolding her children. Think of the stars you gaze upon. Those stars have seen events billions of years old, and you are just now seeing their light.
Posted by Phoenix
05/02/2005 at 12:25 AM
I may freak a few people out here.
But here is what time is.
Time is a human construct. Linearity is almost a genetic function.
Time really doesn’t exist in reality.
It is difficult to conceive time because we insist on the concept of ‘flow’.
THAT does not exist.
All time is any time. There are ‘lives’ of subatomic particles ... but I would hasten you to Heisenberg re that.
That said, time is just now. Just now.
Past, present and future? No.
Better you should think in terms of ‘any’, ‘all’ and ‘nothing’.
Or a random selection of those.
Here is a fact that negates the existence of time ...
It has been shown, that a particle here can and must influence another particle on the other side of the universe. INSTANTLY.
Einstein had issues with this. But it is so.
Therefore the reaction of a particle so far away defies the speed of light.
One has to assume then, either that speed does not exist or time does not exist.
Speed can be demonstrated ... Newton pretty much covered that.
That then leaves only one conclusion. Time, as we know it, does not exist.
Much as we measure distance, we try to measure time.
Cubits. Inches. Meters. They facilitate our computations.
On the other hand, time is a sort of constant we apply to our computations ...
we need to, but in the grand scheme of things ... it ain’t. Ain’t. All is now. Now is all.I hope I have made myself clear.
I’m out of time now.
Posted by Steel Turman
05/02/2005 at 01:59 AM
Steel… it’s not so much that time does not exist, as it is that time is a dimension like the three we are used to seeing.
Man is only able to move one direction along the dimension of time, although he can move freely in the others.
Assuming that a subatomic particle can move in four directions, it should become much easier for it to affect an object a galazy away at the same time - although they are seperated in three dimensions, they are touching in the fourth.
I dunno… I don’t have the mathematics or physics background to properly explain what I mean.JST ...
No.
Time is not a dimension.
The concept of time is a convenience.
That construct allows us to conceive of it ... it does not justify it.
Dimensions themselves are arbitrary my friend.
Another construct to facilitate our ability to quantify what is incomprehensible to our brain.
Think of it as a word.
Let’s say this word means ... say ... linearity.
Flow.
We are born. We live. Then we die.
Flow.
Understandable.
Time, or the conception of time, is not understandable. It’s inconceivable. We cannot process that information.
I would point you to the concept of infinity.
Too much data.
Hence, the origin of religions.
They are a way of explaining our existence.
Justifying it ... if you will.
Time does not exist. Only our concept of time exists.
I’ll point you in one more direction.
Consider pi.
An infinite number. Seemingly a constant in our lives, but unknown to us.
We use it to ... make things. To rationalize things.
It doesn’t exist.
It goes on and on and on.
Even that choice of words fails to define the mathematical import of pi.
It’s there. Close enough. But does not exist.
To bring this full circle ... think of time as a thing that cannot be known, and a thing we must grasp for ... all the time.
I will also harken you to some recent posts by Phoenix.
Therein, she posed existentialism. We are.
It is.
I’ll take that a step further.
We are. It is. There is no is.
Only all.
Chew on that amigo.
Posted by Steel Turman
05/02/2005 at 03:48 AM
Well, perhaps I could share this with you all (it kinda fits):
THE PRESENT
Imagine there is a bank that credits your
account each morning with $86,400.
It carries over no balance from day to day.
Every evening it deletes whatever part of the balance
you failed to use during the day.
What would you do?
Draw out every cent, of course!
Each of us has such a bank.Its name is TIME.
Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.
Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you
have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance.
It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you.
Each night it burns the day’s deposits; the loss is yours.
There is no going back.
There is no drawing against the “tomorrow.”
You must live in the present on today’s deposits.
Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success!The clock is running.
Make the most of today.To realize the value of ONE YEAR,
ask a student who failed a grade.To realize the value of ONE MONTH,
ask a mother who gave birth to a pre-mature baby.To realize the value of ONE WEEK,
ask the editior of a weekly newspaper.To realize the value of ONE DAY,
ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed.To realize the value of ONE HOUR,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.To realize the value of ONE MINUTE,
ask the man who missed his train.To realize the value of ONE SECOND,
ask the person who just avoided an accident.To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND,
ask the person who won a SILVER medal in the Olympics.Treasure every moment that you have!
And treasure it more because you’ve shared it with someone special,
-special enough to share your time.And remember that time waits for no one.
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That’s why it’s called, “the present.”(Author Unknown)
-Dan D,
CanuckistanSteel, I must stick by Einstein and the Special Theory of Relativity on this one, for after all, it has been empirically verified.
“Time” is the fourth dimension, the dimension of duration, and not an independent entity in the classical philosophical sense. Its function, as a dimension, depends on the speed of the entity to which it applies, a speed taken as a percentage of the speed of light.
At lightspeed, time stands still. At zero speed relative to lightspeed, there is instantaneous infinity.
For the record, at lightspeed, the mass of an entity (meaning, the energy needed to accelerate it) is infinite, and its physical dimensions are nil, while at zero speed relative to lightspeed, its physical dimensions are infinite and its mass is zero.
Some, indeed, speculate that if an entity exists at zero speed relative to lightspeed, it is the entity we know as “space.” I’ll buy that, for after all, light and its associated forms of energy, such as radio waves, exist at the other end of the lightspeed spectrum. Logically, there must be something at the zero end, as well. And “space” would seem to fit the bill (infinite physical dimensions, zero mass).
The most lucid explanation of this that I ever saw may be found in Adrian Berry’s “The Next Ten Thousand Years.” I don’t have it under my hand at the moment, but it was published by Mentor Books in the early 1970’s.
Good day to one and all.
T-berg,
I hate break it to ya, but Einstein was dazed and confused when confronted with quantum theory.
He spent most of his life trying to dispel it.
Chaos is the rule.
What you refer to as ‘time’ ... exists only in your mind.
‘Dimensions’ ... ditto.
I’ll refer you to a quote that comes up on this site randomly ...
I feel more like I do now than I did before.
That, my friend, is a fine example of the inability of language (our brain) to wrap around a concept. Temporal mental choking.
I’ll leave you and JST to ponder what I have written here for awhile.
See, like the saying goes ‘think outside the box’ ... there is no box.
That box is of our own making.
It does not exist.
Not hardly.
I’ll not go to quantum quite yet.
I’m hurting my own head right now.
But know this ...
... there’s no box. There’s no time. Only the chance that they MIGHT occur.
In this ‘reality’ ... this ‘existence’… this ‘universe’… it works for us to think in such terms.
Don’t make it so.
And it probably isn’t.
Posted by Steel Turman
05/02/2005 at 08:19 AM
"Life is but a dream, shaboom, shaboom...!”
Posted by MAJ Mike
05/02/2005 at 08:55 AM
Steel, I stand by my original position, thanks.
You refer to the spatial three dimensions as mere perceptions only.
What are they perceptions of?
Unless we are to doubt everything our senses perceive, there must be something that causes our perceptions, other than random chemical reactions in our brains. For if perceptions do not reflect reality, then we cannot be sure of anything, including our own sanity. That was lies relativism, but even more so, madness, as the person who believes that he cannot trust his perceptions could be sure of nothing.
So we accept the existence of three spatial directions: up, forward, and to the side, all existing at right angles to each other. This is our description of our perception of reality - a description of a reflection, and therefore not guaranteed to be terribly detailed, but a basis for understanding of reality nonetheless.
Distance in these dimensions is likewise both a reflection of fact and a description; we set up arbitrary measurements to describe the differences we perceive in distance.
Just as the three spatial directions can be mathematically expressed as being at right angles to each other, it is indeed mathematically possible to add a fourth dimension, at a right angle to the other three. However, in the three dimensions that we perceive through sight (and therefore are accustomed to thinking in, spatially), there is no room for a fourth dimension. The line, square, and cube can all be seen and comprehended, but the tesseract cannot.
I put forth to you the idea that a cube that exists for more than an infinitesimal instant actually is no cube at all, but a tesseract. It has height, depth, width, and temporality.
Now, since one can see that each spatial dimension of that cube is pretty much equal (height equal to depth equal to width), how do we tell if it’s a true tesseract, or simply an oblong box extending into the fourth dimension? Plainly speaking, we cannot, for our perception of such things is not, and has never been, suited to thinking of time as a spatial dimension. Even our name for it reflects this - temporality.
Steel, I think you have made a critical error in your reasoning - that of equating the measurement with the thing. A cube is not a concept only, simply because we can represent it with arbitrary measurements; neither is time a fabrication, merely because our measurement of it is likewise arbitrary in nature. Time as we perceive it has linearity; we fashion seconds, minutes, hours and such to represent this. Nowhere do we claim that the second is itself a piece of time, no more than a meter is itself a piece of a spatial dimension.
True enough, JS, and I will add that the very statement, “Chaos is the rule,” is a contradiction in terms.
Chaos and order cannot coexist. Where there is a rule, there must be an orderly process of investigation, deduction and proof, without which no rule may be established.
This touches on the debate that has been going on at least since the days of Aristotle and Plato. On one side, we find those who assert the primacy of existence; on the other, those who assert the primacy of perception.
On the one side, we find a recognition of the difference between identity and identification. On the other, the two are confused.
On the one side, we find a recognition of the fact that reality exists independently of anyone’s perception of it. On the other, we find a belief that reality is, in fact, defined by perception.
In fact, on one side, we find a belief that reality and existence are all about reality and existence. On the other, we find the belief that reality and existence are all about the perceiver.
I’ll take Aristotle’s side here, with due respects to Plato.
Dan,
That was nice. Profound in a very mundane, albeit germane, fashion - making it all the more soothing for those of us dolts who do not understand what the rest of the guys are talking about here.
How about answering the questions, guys?
Posted by Phoenix
05/02/2005 at 02:15 PM
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anyblody really care
about time?
If so, I can’t imagine why.
Oh, no,
We’ve all got time enough to die.
1) Time is whaqt keeps everything from happening all at once.
2) A long time ago, a long time from now.
3) Right… Now!!!
4) Yep.
5) Nope.
1. Time is what we never have enough of.
2. Don’t know. I was late the first time, and I’ll probably be late the second time.
3. Don’t know if I can have a present. I wasn’t even lucky enough to have a past.
4. Yes. There is no rewind button on the control panel. Not even a pause, and for me, not even a play.
5. I do it every time I’m onstage. GLENN MILLER FOREVER!
“Dein starrer Sinn will sich nicht beugen,
Bedarf es Weiteres dich zu überzeugen.”--Goethe
Ask, and ye shall receive.....
Okay, okay… I submit. I give!
“One should keep one foot in the past, one foot in the future, and one’s head in the present.”
Dizzy Gillespie
hmmm..With the ‘present’ a mere nanosecond’s worth of time, wouldn’t that give him a little tiny head? Like, REALLY tiny? Tanny, please tell me you have a regular head.
I know I’m mixing my metaphors, but you guys made me do it!
Posted by Phoenix
05/02/2005 at 08:30 PM
Hi Phoenix, I try to keep my head regular, but sometimes I need a little help. You and some others are very good at helping, and I appreciate it.
That Goethe quote was aimed at myself, by the way, not at anyone else.
All the bestest.
Tanny,
You are such a sweet man. But I’m confused. How on EARTH can you credit ME with helping keep your head ‘regular’?
I happen to think it’s the other way around.
Posted by Phoenix
05/02/2005 at 11:10 PM
Phoenix,
I am honored by the confidence, and I am proud to be of service. But it’s only giving back what came to me. Of course you help me keep my head regular. Knowing you are out there helps me stay focused on anything I am trying to do here, and helps me “catch another gear,” so to speak. And that carries over into my other activities. Your presence here has been a blessing to all of us, and especially to me.
Kindest regards as always.
Tanny,
I’m quite sure no one has ever said anything that nice to me in my life. At least no one who didn’t want something in return.
You’ve made my day. I thank you.
Posted by Phoenix
05/03/2005 at 12:59 PM
05/02/2005 at 07:42 AM
05/02/2005 at 05:36 PM
