Time; do you believe in it?

[ThreeWords]

Time is the progress of states; as long as there is change, there will be time, inherent in the ordering of those changes. Your argument is like saying that distance isn't real because a meter could redefined as being 120cm

Here's a fun one though: consider the direction of time. We imagine that time runs from past to future, because we have memories of the past. However, there is no reason why entropy, rather than seeking to average out, should not instead attempt to gather together. This would cause hot things to get hotter and cold things to get colder, and all our physics to run in reverse, including the passage of time.
Of course, the rebuttal is that one has memories of the past and not of the future, but if time ran the opposite way then your memories would be actively dissolved as your body sought to focus all it's energy into glucose molecules.

There's no proof that time runs either way, but it saves a lot of effort just to assume entropy tends to averages.

 

[FalloutJack]

*Sigh*

ALL things named by man were made so his own innovation in order to try and render some understanding to the universe. Maybe the universe doesn't agree, but time exists because we invented it, after a fashion. (Never ask a man with philosophy courses under the belt any question such as this.)

 

[grumbel]

Events that happen after or before another don't prove time has direction. That is again human perception. All it shows is that we feel movement requires time; that we we see time as a line. I want proof that doesn't rely on human perception.

At the atomic level, time isn't as obvious at it is from a human perspective, as on the atomic level a particles behavior mostly symmetric, when you know the position and velocity of a particle you can not only calculate where it will be in the future, you can also calculate where it was in the past. However time does still have a direction. As the direction of time can be seen by measuring Entropy, which constantly goes up as time progresses, while it goes down when you go backwards. Take a cup that falls to the ground and breaks into pieces, it happens a lot, you might have seen a few yourself, but you never seen the inverse, shards of porcelain that come together and form a whole cup again, as that would require a change of direction for the Entrophy of a system and that doesn't happen.

I can't wait for the first alien species we meet that doesn't have time to just ruin thousands of years of our science.

The problem with that is that alien species that don't have time can't exist in this universe. The direction of time we have isn't a property of humans, but of the universe itself.

 

[Zukhramm]

Sometimes I find myself writing a reply to a thread here on the Escapist and then I stop, and realize what I'm actually doing. This thread is... why do I even. I need to learn to ignore these forums.

 

[OliverTwist72]

*Sigh*

ALL things named by man were made so his own innovation in order to try and render some understanding to the universe. Maybe the universe doesn't agree, but time exists because we invented it, after a fashion. (Never ask a man with philosophy courses under the belt any question such as this.)

Time is not a philosophical subject tho, it is a fundamental of physics. If there is motion, there must be time because that motion has to take place during a certain interval. Without time, there is no motion, there is no existence. How much time, how to measure it, what are you measuring it relative to are ALL debatable. What is not debatable is that time exists.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Chronos is displeased with this heresy.

HA! Good reference.


Time exsists, you're looking way to into this. Your basicallly analyzing a sandwhich and calling it something more than a sandwhich.

 

[FalloutJack]

*Sigh*

ALL things named by man were made so his own innovation in order to try and render some understanding to the universe. Maybe the universe doesn't agree, but time exists because we invented it, after a fashion. (Never ask a man with philosophy courses under the belt any question such as this.)

Time is not a philosophical subject tho, it is a fundamental of physics. If there is motion, there must be time because that motion has to take place during a certain interval. Without time, there is no motion, there is no existence. How much time, how to measure it, what are you measuring it relative to are ALL debatable. What is not debatable is that time exists.

The truth is actually ANYTHING can be made into a philosophical subject and almost any point can be argued, which is something I learned in my Metaphysics course. I will conceed, however, that a good number of it sounds like a load of horse shit at times.

 

[Joey Wonton]

Think of it mathematically, with time as a dimension on a graph. At any value for time the universe will have a specific arrangement, and, vice versa, any specific arrangement will correspond to a value of time.

The passage of time is only viewed by us because time is used to evolve, because we take advantage of the law of enthalpy. If we were able to evolve better with time going in reverse then it would happen (if time is a mathematical value and can be manipulated like that). You could argue that time is actually going in reverse relative to some other life form out there (extremely different life form).

We can change the rate of passage of time (differential) within our own minds by changing awareness state, so why it could be argued that time in reverse is a possible perception also.

Time, as a mathematical concept, can just be ignored and the whole of the universe, from one end to another, from the 'first' time to the 'last' time, can be observed as one occurrence in another dimension of observation.

 

[hermes]

Time is a real dimension, as real as depth or wide.

From our perspective, the only difference is that we can only perceive one point of that dimension at any given moment... That is because we live in a 3D universe and therefore can't move in nothing but those 3 first dimensions. Other dimensions we can perceive, but can't move through it (or, more precisely, we move through the 4th one, but can't control our movement).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNvHdCosX08

 

[crudus]

I think this guy is making an existential argument, rather than a physics one.
Like, if nobody measures time, can it really exist? It's the old "tree falling in the woods" thing.
It's not something you can really use logic to refute, because it's challenging the entire foundation upon which logical thought is based.

Yeah, that crossed my mind about an hour after I posted that. Before I start I just want to say: Fucking Hell I hate Berkeley.

Ok, then I have this counter argument. It is an interactive thought experiment. Hold your hands apart; it doesn't matter how far apart. Now, that distance is the same if we call it a meter, an inch, a gracie, tits, etc. It will remain that distance. Now lets do the same with the "distance" between the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Toy Story's theatrical release. That "distance" in time is the same. Sure it the difference is 32 years on Earth, ~96 years for Mercury, ~.13 years for Pluto, etc. However, it is the same distance (in the fourth dimension) no matter what time scale you use.

 

[DanielDeFig]

I pretty much agree wholeheartedly with the OP.

"Time is infinite" is a concept that should boil down the reasons why time doesn't actually "exist" beyond the human concept. If there is no beginning and no end to time, then how do you define it? You don't. It's simply an effect of our memories of events we have experienced, and being able to organize them in the correct order of continuation.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Yeah, that crossed my mind about an hour after I posted that. Before I start I just want to say: Fucking Hell I hate Berkeley.

Ok, then I have this counter argument. It is an interactive thought experiment. Hold your hands apart; it doesn't matter how far apart. Now, that distance is the same if we call it a meter, an inch, a gracie, tits, etc. It will remain that distance. Now lets do the same with the "distance" between the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Toy Story's theatrical release. That "distance" in time is the same. Sure it the difference is 32 years on Earth, ~96 years for Mercury, ~.13 years for Pluto, etc. However, it is the same distance (in the fourth dimension) no matter what time scale you use.

The problem is that where my hands and the space between them exist firmly in the empirical, observable world, the space between JFK's assassination and Toy Story's theatrical release is entirely theoretical. It is a point in the social conscious of our people.

Here's a counter counter argument: if aliens landed, with a completely alternate set of languages and cultural contexts to ours, how would you communicate time to them? You could communicate distance simply by drawing a line in the sand. But how would you describe stretches of time? Additionally, if they wiped out all life on earth (and all our history books, etc.), my line in the sand would still exist. But if there was no empirical, observable record of JFK having been assassinated, would that still exist? No scientist would ever be able to prove that happened, or even have any notion that there was anything to prove. Nobody would ever mention or think about it again. How could you say, in that case, that it exists? Isn't the definition of something that exists is that it has an observable effect on the universe?

 

[DracoSuave]

The OP's post confuses the measurement of time with time itself.

A similar argument would state that temperature does not exists simply because the units can be changed. Let me tell you something, it don't matter if you use Celcius, Kelvin, or Fehrenheit. Shit gets hot, shit burns your skin. It doesn't matter what you use to measure time, you're gonna age, things that burn will not be unburned, and so on.

The existence of entropy proves the existence of time. The question is 'what IS time?' and that is a much deeper and interesting question.

Here's a counter counter argument: if aliens landed, with a completely alternate set of languages and cultural contexts to ours, how would you communicate time to them? You could communicate distance simply by drawing a line in the sand. But how would you describe stretches of time?

They would probably have a better understanding of the relativistic effects on time than we would, and whatever we tried to tell them, our notions would come off as quaint and provincial.

 

[Deacon Cole]

You are confusing the unit of measurement with the thing itself. You mistake inches for length.

You should probably organize your thoughts better.

 

[DEAD34345]

You are confusing the unit of measurement with the thing itself. You are mistake inches for length.

You should probably organize your thoughts better.

Actually I'm pretty sure he's trying to explain a number of scientific theories that claim time is basically just another dimension, like the spatial dimensions. What he is saying isn't that the dimension of time is man-made, but that our perception of it as a separate dimension that automatically travels forward is.

Of course this kind of stuff is hard to explain, so I may be wrong (or I may be right and still not be explaining it very clearly).

Basically I think of time as another dimension the same as the 3 dimensions of space. However, events that happen in time seem to affect other events that happen in time along 1 direction only (in most cases). When something happens, it doesn't seem to effect the stuff that has happened "before" it, but it does effect the stuff that happens "after" it. Therefore humans (and presumably any living creature) has to organise events according to time in order to make any sense of it at all.

 

[Sean951]

Yeah, that crossed my mind about an hour after I posted that. Before I start I just want to say: Fucking Hell I hate Berkeley.

Ok, then I have this counter argument. It is an interactive thought experiment. Hold your hands apart; it doesn't matter how far apart. Now, that distance is the same if we call it a meter, an inch, a gracie, tits, etc. It will remain that distance. Now lets do the same with the "distance" between the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Toy Story's theatrical release. That "distance" in time is the same. Sure it the difference is 32 years on Earth, ~96 years for Mercury, ~.13 years for Pluto, etc. However, it is the same distance (in the fourth dimension) no matter what time scale you use.

The problem is that where my hands and the space between them exist firmly in the empirical, observable world, the space between JFK's assassination and Toy Story's theatrical release is entirely theoretical. It is a point in the social conscious of our people.

Here's a counter counter argument: if aliens landed, with a completely alternate set of languages and cultural contexts to ours, how would you communicate time to them? You could communicate distance simply by drawing a line in the sand. But how would you describe stretches of time? Additionally, if they wiped out all life on earth (and all our history books, etc.), my line in the sand would still exist. But if there was no empirical, observable record of JFK having been assassinated, would that still exist? No scientist would ever be able to prove that happened, or even have any notion that there was anything to prove. Nobody would ever mention or think about it again. How could you say, in that case, that it exists? Isn't the definition of something that exists is that it has an observable effect on the universe?

you have left physics and gone into philosophy, so it's kind of pointless to try and argue a point. But for the record, the "information" of JFKs assassination would still exist in the Universe, it would just be horribly scrambled. Information is never destroyed based on what we know of physics.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Yeah, that crossed my mind about an hour after I posted that. Before I start I just want to say: Fucking Hell I hate Berkeley.

Ok, then I have this counter argument. It is an interactive thought experiment. Hold your hands apart; it doesn't matter how far apart. Now, that distance is the same if we call it a meter, an inch, a gracie, tits, etc. It will remain that distance. Now lets do the same with the "distance" between the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Toy Story's theatrical release. That "distance" in time is the same. Sure it the difference is 32 years on Earth, ~96 years for Mercury, ~.13 years for Pluto, etc. However, it is the same distance (in the fourth dimension) no matter what time scale you use.

The problem is that where my hands and the space between them exist firmly in the empirical, observable world, the space between JFK's assassination and Toy Story's theatrical release is entirely theoretical. It is a point in the social conscious of our people.

Here's a counter counter argument: if aliens landed, with a completely alternate set of languages and cultural contexts to ours, how would you communicate time to them? You could communicate distance simply by drawing a line in the sand. But how would you describe stretches of time? Additionally, if they wiped out all life on earth (and all our history books, etc.), my line in the sand would still exist. But if there was no empirical, observable record of JFK having been assassinated, would that still exist? No scientist would ever be able to prove that happened, or even have any notion that there was anything to prove. Nobody would ever mention or think about it again. How could you say, in that case, that it exists? Isn't the definition of something that exists is that it has an observable effect on the universe?

you have left physics and gone into philosophy, so it's kind of pointless to try and argue a point. But for the record, the "information" of JFKs assassination would still exist in the Universe, it would just be horribly scrambled. Information is never destroyed based on what we know of physics.

My original point is that I don't think this thread was ever about physics.

However, you've piqued my interest. What exactly do you mean by "information is never destroyed"?
I mean, if I write something on a piece of paper, I suppose you could say I'm arranging carbon molecules in a way that conveys meaning (and thus storing information physically), and that if I then burn the piece of paper, the carbon molecules are still physically present, but "just horribly scrambled".
But then again, information seems like it would be solely contingent on the arrangement of particles, and not necessarily linked to the particles themselves. So if you scramble the pattern, you've destroyed the information present and it ceases to exist. Otherwise you could argue that within a pencil exists all the information in the universe scrambled up randomly.

 

[YawningAngel]

This is absurd. Time as a concept exists irrespective of our existence. If anything can have multiple states and can transition between them, then it must be possible to distinguish between the two states, and since (at a macroscopic level) they cannot coincide they must ipso facto have occurred at different times. While we wouldn't have "time" as a concept with humans to define it, time itself would be entirely unchanged if we weren't around to observe its passing.

 

[crudus]

Here's a counter counter argument: if aliens landed, with a completely alternate set of languages and cultural contexts to ours, how would you communicate time to them? You could communicate distance simply by drawing a line in the sand. But how would you describe stretches of time? Additionally, if they wiped out all life on earth (and all our history books, etc.), my line in the sand would still exist. But if there was no empirical, observable record of JFK having been assassinated, would that still exist? No scientist would ever be able to prove that happened, or even have any notion that there was anything to prove. Nobody would ever mention or think about it again. How could you say, in that case, that it exists? Isn't the definition of something that exists is that it has an observable effect on the universe?

If Aliens did land and were interested in talking I probably wouldn't start with time or space (they probably would be ahead of me in that area anyway). Probably better to start with names and work our way from there. Actually Dictionary.com just defines existence as "being" or "the state of existing". In 1.45×1027 to 1.74 × 1027 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom the sun will become a red giant, consume the Earth, and turn into a white dwarf. After this happens it is unlikely any life would know we happened or of our history. Does that mean we didn't exist? After looking around my room I notice stuff exists. Just because written and oral data of something doesn't exist, doesn't mean something didn't happen.

Actually it will surprise you to know a scientist can prove events of the past even if an alien race destroyed Earth. It is called conservation of information. Small scale: imagine a sink full of water. Now lets get some red dye into an eye dropper and drip the dye into the water, but let's do it in such a way that the drops hitting the water make "SOS" in Morse code. Wait a while, and the dye will disperse throughout the sink. If we had the time, we could get that original message of "SOS" back. The same concept works everywhere. Everything still affects the universe after it is long gone.

My original point is that I don't think this thread was ever about physics.

A thread is automatically about physics when you can physically prove something exists when the claim is that it does not.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Actually it will surprise you to know a scientist can prove events of the past even if an alien race destroyed Earth. It is called conservation of information. Small scale: imagine a sink full of water. Now lets get some red dye into an eye dropper and drip the dye into the water, but let's do it in such a way that the drops hitting the water make "SOS" in Morse code. Wait a while, and the dye will disperse throughout the sink. If we had the time, we could get that original message of "SOS" back. The same concept works everywhere. Everything still affects the universe after it is long gone.

But that makes no sense. You would have to know the original message of SOS in order to recreate SOS. Just because you can recreate the information doesn't mean it always existed there. If you take that same red dye and make a message out of it that says ASS in morse code, you're creating new information. The particles are the same, yes, but the information they originally stored within their pattern of arrangement has been destroyed.

In other words, if I smash a one-of-a-kind vase, the physical pieces of the vase still exist, but it would be virtually impossible to put back together again without intricate knowledge of how the vase originally looked. In this analogy, the design of the vase is the information which is now lost. Even if you randomly recreated the vase perfectly, you would never really know if it's exactly the way it used to be. So how can you say the information still exists?