Do You Feel Time Is Irrelevant?

[Julianking93]

With the plague of new year's threads, I found myself wondering what the hell the big deal is.

I've always found no point in celebrating something that celebrates the acceleration of time. Time naturally moves forward. It would only be special if it somehow started moving backwards or jumping around through time, but it doesn't. Its one straight line and celebrating something that is inevitably going to happen doesn't make much sense to me.

I find myself agreeing mostly with Einstein when he explained time was irrelevant, but what do you think? Of course, when I say I think time is an irrelevant creation of man, I don't discount it as something that isn't important. It is. We've molded our lives around the concept of time and if well you need to keep time if you want to keep a job or be anywhere as not to piss people off. I don't just say "time is irrelevant" when I'm late to a party

But, I'd like to know how the Escapist feels about the new year and time in general.

 

[El Poncho]

It's tradition, it's more celebrating the supposed to be good year we had and welcoming in a new one.

 

[Radeonx]

I like the getting hammered and partying aspect of New Years, however, I don't particularly care about the year itself.
I suppose the same thing could be said about birthdays, as well.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

Time is pointless, life is basically a series of events and "When" those events happened doesn't really matter all that matters is that they DID happen. I also feel that the new year is nothing special my only hope for this year is that I get my girlfriend back.

Edit: Come to think of it it's kind of like we're celebrating the earth's birthday.

 

[DragonsAteMyMarbles]

I wouldn't call time a "straight line". It's more like a big ball of... wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff.
(sorry)

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[Simalacrum]

I celebrate cause its Japanese tradition to do so - bit like Christmas. Thats irrelevant to Athiests (which I am) technically speaking, but I still celebrate it in traditional manner - tree, presents, whatnot.

I'm half Japanese and we celebrate new year with greater extent to Westeners, so thats what I do.

Don't have a clue why westeners celebrate it though

 

[JohnnySex]

I honestly think celebrating another 365 days without being dead yet is dumb. It's just a date on a calendar. However, that being said, I love any excuse for a party. So yeah.

 

[Julianking93]

Yes, it is getting to much publicity [sub]But so did MW2[/sub]

It's not something to shove [b/]off[/b], though

Fixed that for you

And I'm not shoving it off necessarally, I just find no point in celebrating it. Yes its the new year but that's an arbitrary look at time. Does it make any difference from yesterday, a week ago, or even a second before?

No it doesn't (well to me at least.)

 

[thiosk]

Relevance is subjective.

However, time is relative, most assuredly.

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

No one gives a flying fuck about the time, it's just a brilliant excuse to get absolutely wasted.

 

[Julianking93]

Fixed that for you

And I'm not shoving it off necessarally, I just find no point in celebrating it. Yes its the new year but that's an arbitrary look at time. Does it make any difference from yesterday, a week ago, or even a second before?

No it doesn't (well to me at least.)

Well, so is birthdays, and you celebrate them, don't you.
Granted, they do make a difference at the ages 15*, 18** and 20*** (at least here), but other than that, it doesn't really make a difference

[sub]*Legal age to have sex **Legal age to most things ***Legal age to buy alcohol, aside from in bars[/sub]

Actually, I don't celebrate birthdays at least mine anyway. People give me money but I don't do anything special.

And the whole "get to drink" "get to have sex" "or get to smoke" doesn't appeal to me.

I hate the taste of alcohol so I'll never drink, I'm allergic to cigarettes so I can't smoke and I've had sex once before (the legal age here is 18, I'm 16)

 

[Iconoclasm]

I'm actually glad for this thread - it isn't often that I can talk about the very thing I study (Philosophy of Time) in an open forum...

I don't think you've got quite what Einstein is getting on about. The conclusion of Special Relativity was not that 'time' was irrelevant, but only that your personal subjective experience of the 'present' was, but only in a very mechanical sense. You believe your present to be privileged because it is, indeed, yours. So when you look up at the night sky, you spy lights that are many light-years away, so these distant points of light in your present are actually far past by now. Likewise, another intelligent being (let's assume there is one, for the sake of the thought experiment) may see our sun as a distant point of light. Neither entity has claim to being in the 'correct' mind about time.

What you're describing sounds more like McTaggart's arguments against the reality of Time - I'd love to explain this further, but I'm hungover, so a quick wiki-trip ought to do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time

It is my semi-professional opinion that D.H. Mellor has the right idea about physical/personal time and the split between the time we feel and the time that exists as a dimension. He proposes, while showing that tensed (personal) time is insufficient to describe the phenomena, that we think of our experienced and linear time as a consequence of our mental faculties. That is to say, that linear time (tensed) is mind-dependent, whereas the phenomena itself (tenseless time) exists in a way that we cannot experience in a real way and cannot even be spoken about accurately without the aid of mathematical models.

So to actually answer your question, I feel that tensed time is indeed irrelevant, but tenseless B-series time itself, as it is a fundamental (and necessary, albeit possibly accidental) dimension of the universe, is not 'irrelevant.'

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[Julianking93]

*snip*

I think I like this McTaggart guy. Never heard of him before though.

I thought that was Einstein's idea that all time is irrelevant. Thank you for sharing that.

 

[rabidmidget]

I wouldn't say time is irrelevant, how long we have until our terminal breath is dependent on time as well as how much we accomplish in our lives

Unless you mean that time is relative, in which case I agree with you

 

[Julianking93]

Actually, I don't celebrate birthdays at least mine anyway. People give me money but I don't do anything special.

And the whole "get to drink" "get to have sex" "or get to smoke" doesn't appeal to me.

I hate the taste of alcohol so I'll never drink, I'm allergic to cigarettes so I can't smoke and I've had sex once before (the legal age here is 18)

That's what I mean by 'celebrate'... because that's what I do
Aside from my parents making my family come over...

And they doesn't matter to me either.
Alcohol tastes like crap
Smokes kill people
And sex I don't need (asexual)

Seems I'm not the only one to be practically asexual.

 

[Iconoclasm]

No worries mate - why am I in debt up to my eyeballs if not to be full of crap that only use on an internet forum? At least until my dissertation is finished, that is...

Back in my undergrad years I would have tried to dissuade you from McTaggart's position, as it is flawed, however it is a fascinating claim, so I'll let you play with it for a bit. If you have a solid mathematics background, I'd recommend checking out Einstein's philosophical works as well as an old book a math prof once recommended to me called 'Space, Time and Spacetime' by Lawrence Sklar. If you're really into the subject, shoot me a PM - I'm getting addicted to this feeling that my education may actually be of some use to someone

 

[Disaster Button]

Its one straight line and celebrating something that is inevitably going to happen doesn't make much sense to me.

Take that up with The Doctor.

OT: I find celebrating the New Year a waste of time really, its just another excuse for people to get wasted and make promises which they think they will stick to because the new year gives them super powers or a rebirth or.. something.