What is time?

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bahman
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What is time?

Post by bahman »

Time is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes. To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
uwot
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Re: What is time?

Post by uwot »

bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pmTime is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes.
The thing with any claim that time is a substance is that, even if it is true, we currently have no direct means of detecting it. Every method we have of measuring time is based on a physical event, none of which show any evidence of containing any additional substance to the matter we can detect.
bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pmTo show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
Right. So where is the substance? Calling time a substance gets you into problems about how two different substances interact and makes the effects of relativity seem weird. If you dispense with the substance and consider an interaction between x and y, say there is an atom at both x and y and the interaction is a photon passing from one to the other. If x and y are stationary, the photon can take the shortest path between them. Suppose there are two more atoms at p and q; those points though are moving up the screen. For the same interaction to take place, the photon now has to take a diagonal path. For convenience we say the diagonal path, because it is longer, takes more time to cross. All that happens though is that more interactions will occur between x and y, than p and q and if those interactions happen to be the ones you are counting to measure time, relative to x and y, time is passing more slowly in p and q.
Einstein himself made that point with the example of a light clock. I've illustrated this in the last few pages of this strip cartoon: https://popgunsbubblesandmotorbikes.blo ... -guns.html
popeye1945
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Re: What is time?

Post by popeye1945 »

bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pm Time is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes. To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
bahman.

Time is the perception of temporality, and as we know today times systems are local to where you are in the cosmos. Matter, space, motion and perception are time and time as the meaning belongs only to a conscious subject, time is totally dependent upon perception of. Matter, space motion and coordinates will still be there we suppose, but we know only cognitively thus in the absence of a conscious subject it is all meaningless. Like everything else in our apparent reality in the absence of a conscious subject there is nothing whatsoever. Time like the mind is the emergent property of a process, time itself is not tangible and like everything else is dependent upon consciousness.
Last edited by popeye1945 on Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Harbal
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Re: What is time?

Post by Harbal »

bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pm Time is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes.
Rather than allowing change, how can you be sure that time isn't just a by-product that results from change?
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Re: What is time?

Post by uwot »

Harbal wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:31 amRather than allowing change, how can you be sure that time isn't just a by-product that results from change?
My guess is that you are on the money. If you combine that with popeye 1945's:
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:16 amTime is the perception of temporality...
You get a universe in which stuff happens, but not all at once, and we fill in the gaps with a stuff we call time. The difference between yesterday morning and today is not that we have travelled through time, but rather that the Earth has spun around once, and a whole bunch of other things happened while it was doing so.
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Re: What is time?

Post by popeye1945 »

uwot wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:52 am
Harbal wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:31 amRather than allowing change, how can you be sure that time isn't just a by-product that results from change?
My guess is that you are on the money. If you combine that with popeye 1945's:
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:16 am
Time is the perception of temporality...
You get a universe in which stuff happens, but not all at once, and we fill in the gaps with a stuff we call time. The difference between yesterday morning and today is not that we have travelled through time, but rather that the Earth has spun around once, and a whole bunch of other things happened while it was doing so.
Interesting but even as time is dependent upon perception, perception is a reaction, so the effect of biological change is experience of process. Like all things time is process. A module of mass in motion relative to other mass formations in space has an effect which creates a reactive effect in our biology which is time, just as the same processes creates objects in our apparent reality, the inner workings of our given reality relative to the state of one's biology. Perhaps here to we might be hedging on our different experiences of what is considered our common time frame. Time experienced relative to the given state of one's biology.
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Harbal
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Re: What is time?

Post by Harbal »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:19 am
Interesting but even as time is dependent upon perception, perception is a reaction, so the effect of biological change is experience of process. Like all things time is process. A module of mass in motion relative to other mass formations in space has an effect which creates a reactive effect in our biology which is time, just as the same processes creates objects in our apparent reality, the inner workings of our given reality relative to the state of one's biology. Perhaps here to we might be hedging on our different experiences of what is considered our common time frame. Time experienced relative to the given state of one's biology.
Of course, I don't know what time is, or even if it is a thing, rather than just a false perception created by something else. I can only say what it seems to be to me, and what seems to be is very often not what actually is. But, anyway, what it (sort of) seems to be is what is left over when a process of some kind has occured. Perhaps partly analogous to the exhaust fumes left behind after burning. I certainly see time as an effect rather than a cause.

I will now wait to be told how absurd I am being. :)


It is very difficult to say anything about time that suggests it is anything other than what it is commonly regarded as without using terms of temporality, which tends to severely undermine your suggestion. :(
uwot
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Re: What is time?

Post by uwot »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:19 amTime experienced relative to the given state of one's biology.
Well at the risk of repeating you and without getting into what exactly perception is, there is at least a strong correlation between physical states of our brains and conscious states. We all know that our perception of time is influenced by what we happen to be doing. This quote attributed to Einstein illustrates one sense: “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” Like many things Einstein is credited with saying, there's little evidence that he actually said it.
Another sense which Einstein said a lot about is that the time dilation, the slowing of clocks, due to motion and gravity, affects the processes in our brains exactly the same as any other process. Part of Einstein's inspiration for special relativity was the idea that if you were travelling at the speed of light, your image in a mirror would disappear; either because the light from your face couldn't reach the mirror, or the reflection couldn't reach you. That would violate Galileo's principle of relativity, which says that everything appears the same in any inertial frame. So for example if you drop your coffee on a moving train, it falls at your feet exactly as if you are standing on the platform. Special relativity rescues the principle of relativity by showing that every process slows down, including brains. And just to make absolutely sure your face in the mirror never disappears, special relativity also shows that it is impossible for you to travel at the speed of light anyway. Again, that's all shown in cartoon form in the last few pages of this: https://popgunsbubblesandmotorbikes.blo ... -guns.html
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bahman
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Re: What is time?

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uwot wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:05 am
bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pmTime is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes.
The thing with any claim that time is a substance is that, even if it is true, we currently have no direct means of detecting it. Every method we have of measuring time is based on a physical event, none of which show any evidence of containing any additional substance to the matter we can detect.
Time exists and changes. The change however is subject to variation near a heavy object. Gravitational wave was obsevered. That means that space-time is a substance.
uwot wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:05 am
bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pmTo show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
Right. So where is the substance? Calling time a substance gets you into problems about how two different substances interact and makes the effects of relativity seem weird. If you dispense with the substance and consider an interaction between x and y, say there is an atom at both x and y and the interaction is a photon passing from one to the other. If x and y are stationary, the photon can take the shortest path between them. Suppose there are two more atoms at p and q; those points though are moving up the screen. For the same interaction to take place, the photon now has to take a diagonal path. For convenience we say the diagonal path, because it is longer, takes more time to cross. All that happens though is that more interactions will occur between x and y, than p and q and if those interactions happen to be the ones you are counting to measure time, relative to x and y, time is passing more slowly in p and q.
Einstein himself made that point with the example of a light clock. I've illustrated this in the last few pages of this strip cartoon: https://popgunsbubblesandmotorbikes.blo ... -guns.html
Time exists otherwise the change was impossible. What could ever exist mean if time is not a substance?
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bahman
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Re: What is time?

Post by bahman »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:16 am
bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pm Time is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes. To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
bahman.

Time is the perception of temporality, and as we know today times systems are local to where you are in the cosmos. Matter, space, motion and perception are time and time as the meaning belongs only to a conscious subject, time is totally dependent upon perception of. Matter, space motion and coordinates will still be there we suppose, but we know only cognitively thus in the absence of a conscious subject it is all meaningless. Like everything else in our apparent reality in the absence of a conscious subject there is nothing whatsoever. Time like the mind is the emergent property of a process, time itself is not tangible and like everything else is dependent upon consciousness.
Yes, we can experience time but time is not the perception of temporality. As I argue time is needed for change.
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Re: What is time?

Post by bahman »

Harbal wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:31 am
bahman wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:01 pm Time is a substance (by substance I mean that it exists and has some property) that allows changes.
Rather than allowing change, how can you be sure that time isn't just a by-product that results from change?
That I argue it in the part you didn't comment.
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Re: What is time?

Post by Harbal »

bahman wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:09 pm That I argue it in the part you didn't comment.
I haven't seen anything resembling an argument, bahman.
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Re: What is time?

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Harbal wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:14 pm
bahman wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:09 pm That I argue it in the part you didn't comment.
I haven't seen anything resembling an argument, bahman.
Here it is: To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
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Re: What is time?

Post by Harbal »

bahman wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:18 pm
Here it is: To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
How can you be sure that one thing comes after another, rather than just seeming to? I'm not saying you are wrong, but you haven't presented anything that entitles you to claim that you are right.
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Re: What is time?

Post by bahman »

Harbal wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:25 pm
bahman wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:18 pm
Here it is: To show this, consider a change, X to Y. X and Y cannot lay at the same point since otherwise, they are simultaneous. This means that we at least need two points of a variable one comes after another. The distance between two points must be finite otherwise the change does not take place. This distance is nothing more than duration since one point comes after another one. This variable we call time.
How can you be sure that one thing comes after another, rather than just seeming to? I'm not saying you are wrong, but you haven't presented anything that entitles you to claim that you are right.
If we have two points related to X and Y and one does not come after another one then you cannot have a change.
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