What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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Speakpigeon
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What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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This is the most fundamental question concerning time: If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things. Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, why would they stay synchronised with it if time doesn't exist?
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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The simplest answer: they don't. All clocks fall out of sync.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... antum-gas/
“In 2014, the world’s most accurate optical clock wouldn’t lose or gain one second in the entire age of the universe,” says Jun Ye at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Previous caesium clocks kept time accurately to within a second over the course of 300 million years.

Now, Ye’s group has built a strontium clock that is so precise, out of every 10 quintillion ticks only 3.5 would be out of sync – the first atomic clock ever to reach that level of precision.
And there is no such thing as a "master clock". The most precise clock you have available to you becomes the reference clock by default.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by attofishpi »

Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 3:49 pmThis is the most fundamental question concerning time: If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things. Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, why would they stay synchronised with it if time doesn't exist?
EB

You are still considering things with things - time with clocks - understand that the events that occur within a mans clock occurs within the events of all matter, clocks included - as I previously stated - time only exists when an event occurs.
Sorry if it seems arrogant, but I am going to post our conversation from the other thread of 'what is time' here:-


Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pm
attofishpi wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 10:46 am I think we can look at time objectively by understanding that time is simply the occurrence of an event, no event, no time - a true moment in time.
So what we are looking at, objectively, is the most finite point in 3D space - where, either an event occurs or it doesn't. Binary reality.
But this contradicts our perception of time.
So what? Our perception is also because of events occurring in the sub atomic fabric of our brain.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmOne moment, no or very few events. Another moment, a furious myriad of events. I don't think anyone believes time actually slows down or speeds up with the number of events.
Yes, it does. Gravity and the speed one has through space affects the events.
Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmWe even had to devise special contraptions, clocks, to produce special events occurring at regular time intervals, tick·tacks, to tell us time.
Yes, time is the measurement of events that man has attuned clocks to.
Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmAnd even if nothing happens around you, your own body is doing all sorts of things and your brain makes sure you have a notion of the passage of time.
As above RE our perception.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmA moment in time isn't an instant. "Moment" is just another word for "period of time", only suggesting something shorter. A moment is just a short period of time, say from less than a second to more than one minute. It really doesn't mean anything to ask for a precise duration. How long is a moment? It depends... It was supposed to take just a moment but we waited instead a long moment in silence...
As I said, at its most finite a moment in time is binary, either there is an event in 3D space, or there isn't - yes, this includes the events occurring within the 'fabric' of our brain.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmIf time was the occurrence of an event, or the succession of events, there would be no reason for similar processes to take the same amount of time.
Similar is a massive word in the context of time.

Scientists have for the first time been able to measure something in a zeptosecond, or a trillionth of a billionth of a second.
An attosecond is even larger but is 1×10−18 of a second (one quintillionth of a second). For context, an attosecond is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 billion years. The word "attosecond" is formed by the prefix atto and the unit second.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmInstead, if you think events occur in time, in some sort of preexisting time, then events will take a certain time to unfold according to their nature.
No, I don't think you are quite getting this. Events ARE time.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmUnless, if there is just one fundamental type of event.
The events that make up our reality - at the binary most finite scale - possibly well beneath the planck scale, may be related to other events in 3D space, but not necessarily in a causal relationship.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmThe time for a macroscopic event to unfold would depend on the fundamental events it is made of. In fact, I can't see any other explanation.
Such as the huge amount of events that must occur for a second hand to move a second.

Speakpigeon wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:30 pmThis explains clocks without having to resort to the metaphysical concept of time.
Clocks don't have to do anything that humans apply metaphysical concepts to.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:03 pm The simplest answer: they don't. All clocks fall out of sync.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... antum-gas/
“In 2014, the world’s most accurate optical clock wouldn’t lose or gain one second in the entire age of the universe,” says Jun Ye at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Previous caesium clocks kept time accurately to within a second over the course of 300 million years. Now, Ye’s group has built a strontium clock that is so precise, out of every 10 quintillion ticks only 3.5 would be out of sync – the first atomic clock ever to reach that level of precision.
That's exactly what people call "synchronisation".
Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:03 pm And there is no such thing as a "master clock".
Yes, there is. A master clock is whatever people, usually scientists, want to call "master clock".
Scientists call "master clock" the clock they are using as the reference clock. The reference clock is just the clock that tells the reference time. The reference time is the time other clocks are set to at intervals to make sure they stay synchronised with the master clock and hence with each other.

Say we have one thousand ordinary clocks in a secure vault and they stay synchronised within twenty seconds over a period of 24 hours. How do they do that if there's no time is the question.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Logik »

Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:54 pm That's exactly what people call "synchronisation".
Thank you for teaching me that which is covered in any undergrad computer science class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_synchronization
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:54 pm Scientists call "master clock" the clock they are using as the reference clock. The reference clock is just the clock that tells the reference time. The reference time is the time other clocks are set to at intervals to make sure they stay synchronised with the master clock and hence with each other.
Not quite. When you are doing event-ordering in a distributed fashion the above doesn't work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport_timestamps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_clock

See also:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/me ... di2012.pdf

Spanner is Google’s scalable, multi-version, globallydistributed, and synchronously-replicated database. It is
the first system to distribute data at global scale and support externally-consistent distributed transactions.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Speakpigeon »

attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:49 pm You are still considering things with things - time with clocks - understand that the events that occur within a mans clock occurs within the events of all matter, clocks included - as I previously stated - time only exists when an event occurs.

Please, read again what I say:
If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things. Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, why would they stay synchronised with it if time doesn't exist?
I think it's phrased clearly and the question is straightforward: What keeps clocks ticking together if not time itself?
Please answer the question as asked. And if you don't know the answer, fair enough but please don't post irrelevancies.
attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:49 pm Sorry if it seems arrogant, but I am going to post our conversation from the other thread of 'what is time' here:-[/b]
Please address the topic at hand. What you say from there is irrelevant to the topic of this thread.
EB
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:02 pm When you are doing event-ordering in a distributed fashion the above doesn't work.
Whatever. That's not what I'm doing.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Logik »

Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:13 pm
Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:02 pm When you are doing event-ordering in a distributed fashion the above doesn't work.
Whatever. That's not what I'm doing.
EB
If you told us what you were trying to do I could help you figure out out faster.

Or you can swing your dick at me like you always do.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Speakpigeon »

Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:14 pm
Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:13 pm
Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:02 pm When you are doing event-ordering in a distributed fashion the above doesn't work.
Whatever. That's not what I'm doing.
If you told us what you were trying to do I could help you figure out out faster.
Or you can swing your dick at me like you always do.
Or you can just answer the bloody question.
Just a thought.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Logik »

Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:29 pm Or you can just answer the bloody question.
Just a thought.
EB
It's difficult to give good answers to poorly-stated question.

So you can help me help you, or be a dick about it.

Just a thought.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by attofishpi »

Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:09 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:49 pm You are still considering things with things - time with clocks - understand that the events that occur within a mans clock occurs within the events of all matter, clocks included - as I previously stated - time only exists when an event occurs.
Please, read again what I say:
If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things. Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, why would they stay synchronised with it if time doesn't exist?

I think it's phrased clearly and the question is straightforward: What keeps clocks ticking together if not time itself?
Please answer the question as asked. And if you don't know the answer, fair enough but please don't post irrelevancies.
Therefore, you totally don't understand the concept of time which is what I have explained to you in the most comprehensible way I can to someone that lacks the comprehension of such a thing.
If you paid more than a zeptosecond of attention you would understand that TIME does NOT keep a clock ticking!
The events that occur within matter are what IS time. Time is purely a man made measurement of events.
Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:09 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:49 pmSorry if it seems arrogant, but I am going to post our conversation from the other thread of 'what is time' here:-[/b]
Please address the topic at hand. What you say from there is irrelevant to the topic of this thread.
EB
Which only goes to show that you need to brush up on your skills of comprehension.
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Impenitent »

the waterproof clock isn't afraid of the sink...

-Imp
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by attofishpi »

Impenitent wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:40 pm the waterproof clock isn't afraid of the sink...

-Imp
..and that is the amazing thing about the waterproof clock with relation to the sync...

-atto
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Re: What's your answer to the most fundamental question concerning time?

Post by Speakpigeon »

attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:48 pm
Speakpigeon wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:09 pm Please, read again what I say:
If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things. Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, why would they stay synchronised with it if time doesn't exist?
I think it's phrased clearly and the question is straightforward: What keeps clocks ticking together if not time itself?
Please answer the question as asked. And if you don't know the answer, fair enough but please don't post irrelevancies.
Therefore, you totally don't understand the concept of time which is what I have explained to you in the most comprehensible way I can to someone that lacks the comprehension of such a thing.
If you paid more than a zeptosecond of attention you would understand that TIME does NOT keep a clock ticking!
The events that occur within matter are what IS time. Time is purely a man made measurement of events.
I understood it's your point first time round but your point is irrelevant since it does not answer my question in this thread.
So, either you answer the question or you don't, but please stop posting irrelevancies.
EB
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