Time; do you believe in it?

[King Toasty]

We know that time moves in one direction, (at least not on the quantum-mindfuckery level) because we see that atoms decay in one way- downwards. They degrade, always, all the time, instead of every getting stronger (or the reverse of decay).

But that's our idea of time -- that progression is a forward moving force. If time exists outside our need for it, how do you know decay is not caused by time moving sideways? How do you know time moves at all? Or even within our understanding of direction? Perhaps the entire concept of time being movement is wrong.

My point isn't that time doesn't exist (fuck knows if it does), but rather who's to say our man-made view of it is right? It all just seems so... arrogant (not you - the concept). As if the way we understand time is truth. I dunno.


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I didn't say it moved forward, I just said it moved in one direction. We always think of it moving "forward". But even if it DID illogically move "backwards", I'd still be right, because time would still exist.

 

[Innegativeion]

You can renumber a clock to give it different intervals, but time still exists independently of your labels. It is most defiantly not manmade. Just man labeled for your convenience. It existed before there was mans after all.

Yup, it is a function of energy, like space and matter.


To put it simply, time exists because everything else exists, It does not exists independently of the universe. If all matter ceased, time would cease.

It is a natural phenomena like matter.

 

[rokkolpo]

What we call time is merely a documentation of our perception.
And for that, time is true.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Like space, time is a multidimensional thing. We only perceive the present because we only see one-dimensional snippets of a multidimensional entity. Doesn't matter how you measure time, it's there anyway.

This is the theory I buy into. The past, present, and future all exist simoultaneously, but we can only see the present because we live in the 3rd dimension.

Here:

That clears it all up, right?

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

I didn't say it moved forward, I just said it moved in one direction. We always think of it moving "forward". But even if it DID illogically move "backwards", I'd still be right, because time would still exist.

But how do you know it is moving? How do you know decay requires time? Because our perception of time is a movement from point A to B, or A to -Z? That's conjecture based on our notion of time -- purely subjective. I've yet to ever hear proof that can show time to exist outside of us.

 

[spartan231490]

A couple of months ago i was watching a documentary on time travel and i couldn't help but dissagree with the theories being talked about, but it got me to thinking about time and the nature of it.

Now this might be quite a farfetched concept to a lot of you as i can't imagine you have seen many theories that say time isn't real, so bare with me and ill try explain this the best i can.


Time is a man made concept, it is not a natural phenomenon. Time was created to allow us to have a grasp of how long something will take to complete, how long ago an event happened or how long it will be until an events happenes. Time is something that can be very easily changed, if i wanted to change the number of hours in a day to 10 and change how long a minute was, with the right knowledge of how a clock worked, i could do it.


My personal opinion is that, as far as the past, the future and the possibility of time travel go, time doesn't exist. There is no past and future, everything that happened happened in the prescent as the precent is the evolution of everything that used to be.

Our conscept of time revolves around the length of time it takes for our planet to do a full rotation, and the length of time it takes to orbit our sun once. This would be different for every other planet in the universe, including those in our solar system.


So that's roughly what i think of the concept of time. I want to know what you guys think about time and whether you agree of dissagree with my idea to whatever extent.

I disagree. I think you are confusing the concept of time with it's definition. Yes, days and years and hours and minutes ect. are all man-made constructs, but the flow of time, the existence of time is not. With no man around, plants still grow; animals live, die, and replicate. Radioactive elements break down, water evaporates. A state cannot change without time. Without time there can be no motion, no chemical reactions, nothing. Time undeniably exists, and it is uniform, because these phenomena occur in the same amount of time every time, regardless to the presence of man.

To say that time doesn't exist because we created arbitrary scales for it is like saying distance doesn't exist because a meter is different than a yard, or that volume doesn't exist because a liter is different than a quart. Just because the scale used to measure something was arbitrarily created by man, doesn't mean that that thing doesn't exist.

I also don't agree with your statement that our concept of time revolves around days and years. It doesn't. It revolves around the concept that things change, that time flows, and that every day is different than the last. We would still have a concept of time if we had evolved underground, unable to see the sun. We would probably define it differently, but the concept of time would still exist.

 

[Hijax]

Minor nitpick: Time is no longer standardized by days being broken up into smaller segments, but by the properties of, i think, caesium-133. The second is standardized so that it will be the same everywhere in the universe

 

[newwiseman]

I don't think the theories based on the Linear Universe are correct, unfortunately the tech and math to prove or disprove is really damn hard or simply non-existent. I personally like to believe that the universe is flexible enough to allow really crazy/impossible shit to occur without imploding.., but without evidence to prove or disprove all we can go on is observations. When you consider the mostly excepted big bang theory requires that all the forces that hold matter together where at some point different, and requires the laws of physics to change from what they were to what they currently are, it's not hard to conclude that reality has much greater rules than we can, or will ever be able, to observe in our universe.

That said yes time exists as the 4th dimension (length, width, height, and time), all of which can be distorted and bent by crazy shit (like gravity), all the dimensions can be plotted on a graph. How you scale time can be as varied as how you measure the first 3.

Random side note, String theory has a minimum 6 dimensions (the last 2 dimensions being perspective concepts, since both time and matter can change by distance, speed, and proximity to other matter), allows for insane things to happen over time as perspective changes. Theoretical Physics is some fun shit, no doubt it.

Like space, time is a multidimensional thing. We only perceive the present because we only see one-dimensional snippets of a multidimensional entity. Doesn't matter how you measure time, it's there anyway.

This is the theory I buy into. The past, present, and future all exist simoultaneously, but we can only see the present because we live in the 3rd dimension.

Here:

That clears it all up, right?

I've always loved that video.

 

[zehydra]

Time is like Distance. If you believe that time doesn't "exist", then you must also acknowledge that distance doesn't "exist".

 

[Ace of Spades]

Of course. We may have made an arbitrary scale to measure it based on the rotation of the earth, but time is not a man-made concept. We just quantified it.

 

[Saippua]

Time is a physical thing. It can be bend, it can be slowed, it can be measured. It exists and claiming other ways would require some pretty heavy evidence.

 

[King Toasty]

I didn't say it moved forward, I just said it moved in one direction. We always think of it moving "forward". But even if it DID illogically move "backwards", I'd still be right, because time would still exist.

But how do you know it is moving? How do you know decay requires time? Because our perception of time is a movement from point A to B, or A to -Z? That's conjecture based on our notion of time -- purely subjective. I've yet to ever hear proof that can show time to exist outside of us.

I just gave you it. The eventual collapse of isotopes isn't subjective at all, nor is the directionality. If time WASN'T moving in a direction, atoms would decay or reverse-decay randomly. If time wasn't directional, it would be logically impossible to make any guesses about the future or past without them being absolutely wrong. But we CAN make theories about the past and future, so they both must exist.

Past and future exist separately, and we can prove it by cause and effect.
If we feel the effect of a cause, the cause must logically have already happened, or is in the process of happening. This isn't our perception, it's a universal fact. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but the initial action has to have already happened. This proved the past exist.
Now, the future is a bit trickier, and this is where people either refer to multiple timelines, or fixed points. But then quantum physics get involved and everything goes batshit.

 

[Callate]

It's been suggested that time as we think of it is largely a matter of human perception. In as much as I am mortal, and a day has a certain length, and my food supply is dictated by seasonal patterns and so on, though, disputing the "reality" of time generally seems to be about as meaningful as a man falling to his death proclaiming as he falls that gravity is nothing more than the pull of two masses upon one another.

 

[Coffinshaker]

err... ok. time actually exists. it's a tangible element of our universe. we can actually slow down time (albeit, not by very much) in certain experiments. time can be warped by gravitational forces as well (theoretically).

 

[WanderingFool]

I think time is an effect that can be seen and felt in different ways, and that all man did was give time a label that man himself is able to understand.

 

[baker80]

If anyone were to ask me what I think is wrong with the world today, I'd say it's how everyone seems to suddenly think they're qualified to have an opinion on absolutely everything. Jesus Christ.

 

[Bek359]

Without time, there would not be speed. Without speed, there would not be movement. Without movement, there would be no life. You are alive, therefore, there is time.

 

[Zaik]

You're considering time only as a measurement. That is completely a construct of men, just like any measurement is, because that is the whole point of measurements.

If you consider time as movement in a direction, it most likely exists, as things would *probably* never change without the progression of time.

Arguing over which is the correct way to define it is just a petty matter of semantics.

 

[Nazz3]

Time is a dimension, it does exist.