Random Thoughts on Time

keu

yea....well..I was planning on writing a big spiel, but I didn't have the time.

joshcork

Time in my opinion doesn't exist exactly but is a consequence of matter and mechanics. Since everything we see is strictly speaking only because the mass has moved. Everything in the universe is energy and energy is unchanging so it has no perception of time in a closed system.

For time travel to the past why not, in theory its just a matter of rearranging energy to particular place and pressing play

For travel to the future just get in a fast plane i suppose

mike65

I find its best to let The Floyd sum up my feelings about time -

Ticking away the moments that make up the dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today

And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking

And racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or a half page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone the song is over, thought i'd something more to say

Mike.

Fysh

Originally posted by joshcork
Time in my opinion doesn't exist exactly but is a consequence of matter and mechanics. Since everything we see is strictly speaking only because the mass has moved. Everything in the universe is energy and energy is unchanging so it has no perception of time in a closed system.

For time travel to the past why not, in theory its just a matter of rearranging energy to particular place and pressing play

For travel to the future just get in a fast plane i suppose

errr....not exactly. There is a law of conservation of energy but energy can take several forms, some of which are more stable than others. Entropy is the thing that makes me think there is time - a "measure of disorder" as it were. Physical and chemical processes drive towards stability (eg radioactive decay, atoms go from less stable state to more stable state). Entropy never decreases in a closed system - the best that can be hoped is a steady entropic state under which no useful work can be done.

joshcork

We percieve time as the rate of change of stuff. If their were no stuff then you have no refrence to base time on hence it would'nt need to exist.
I know thats a very broad statement and for all intensive purposes time does exist but I just like to think that time is a consequence of matter not the other way round.

keu

thats a little bit like the str joshcork. e=mc2..I tend to agree.

Fysh

There's no point in trying to say that one is the consequence of the other or vice-versa. The currently accepted theories of Special and General Relativity suggest that the universe consists of a Space-Time Continuum. It doesn't say "Space made time so that there would be some way for stuff to happen" or "Time made space so that there was somewhere for things to happen in". Just that the two are inextricably linked. Further discussion of this requires a fairly advanced understanding of astrophysics as well as a lot of very complex mathematical tools.

Not meaning to be rude or anything, but I spent three years getting a Physics degree and "woolly" physics gets on my nerves.

Aside from that, why on earth was the "E=mc2" mentioned? That deals with the conversion of energy and matter, and doesn't involve time at all.

joshcork

I'm doing an applied physics degree at the moment aswell and I take your point I was just trying to be a bit more philisophical about it since if your going to get into the specifics its really cutting edge stuff that only a few people really understand
I certainly don't so instead I'm just taking a different point of view

simu

Yes, instead of getting into the physics side of things, we could discuss how people perceive time.

Here's an article that takes a philosophical appraoch to time perception.

I'm pasting the first two paragraphs to give an idea of what exactly is being discussed:

We see colours, hear sounds and feel textures. Some aspects of the world, it seems, are perceived through a particular sense. Others, like shape, are perceived through more than one sense. But what sense or senses do we use when perceiving time? It is certainly not associated with one particular sense. In fact, it seems odd to say that we see, hear or touch time passing. And indeed, even if all our senses were prevented from functioning for a while, we could still notice the passing of time through the changing pattern of our thought. Perhaps, then, we have a special faculty, distinct from the five senses, for detecting time. Or perhaps, as seems more likely, we notice time through perception of other things. But how?

Time perception raises a number of intriguing puzzles, including what it means to say we perceive time. In this article, we shall explore the various processes through which we are made aware of time, and which influence the way we think time really is. Inevitably, we shall be concerned with the psychology of time perception, but the purpose of the article is to draw out the philosophical issues, and in particular whether and how aspects of our experience can be accommodated within certain metaphysical theories concerning the nature of time and causation.

keu

..this thread is titled random thoughts on time...
if it was titled definitive thoughts on time then maybe I could understand why the physicist gets a bit uptight.
Einstein’s special theory of relativity is his translation of the physics that shaped our “truths” of space and time. That’s pretty definitive.

Energy (mass travelling at the speed of light squared) e=mc2
I used e=mc2 in a relative capacity.. call it artistic license, because this is the philosophy forum, and not the physics forum, think of it like an analogy
The conversion of energy and matter has everthing to do with it, in particular in response to joshcorks post, as he stated that

time does exist but I just like to think that time is a consequence of matter not the other way round.

Is it not possible that time is the result of such a conversion?

To me it suggests that time is the result of physical existence.
in some strange way I equated time as the consequence of mass travelling at the speed of light…. squared
…and this statement sort of concured with the image I had

We percieve time as the rate of change of stuff. If their were no stuff then you have no refrence to base time on hence it would'nt need to exist

just to add
I find that most of the topics on this board are governed by a metaphysical perspective and so they will veer off into the hardened "reality" of physics..but as I've said before, this should add to the subject, not detract from it.

metaphysics:

"Whereas physics is the attempt to discover the laws that govern fundamental concrete objects, metaphysics is the attempt to discover the laws that systematize the fundamental abstract objects presupposed by physical science, such as natural numbers, real numbers, functions, sets and properties, physically possible objects and events, to name just a few. The goal of metaphysics, therefore, is to develop a formal ontology, i.e., a formally precise systematization of these abstract objects. Such a theory will be compatible with the world view of natural science if the abstract objects postulated by the theory are conceived as patterns of the natural world."

more here

..how difficult is it to understand my perception of energy, (and therefore time) the most preliminary scientific fact that we ever learned was that energy cannot be destroyed, but can be changed from one form to another. This is the substance of metaphysics...I am just applying the laws of physics to the self.
Eg:
me=energy
so I just apply e=mc2 to the human condition and I find myself converted from matter to energy ..at some point. Some people consider this energy as the soul.

like my woolley physics?

anyway..Descartes had a similar idea

"I prefer here to attend to the thoughts that sprung up of themselves in my mind, and were inspired by my own nature alone, when I applied myself to the consideration of what I was. In the first place, then, I thought that I possessed a countenance, hands, arms, and all the fabric of members that appears in a corpse, and which I called by the name of body. It further occurred to me that I was nourished, that I walked, perceived, and thought, and all those actions I referred to the soul; but what the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts."

:rolleyes:

keu

I just wanted to emphasise, this is my perspective, it's not a universal ideaology..it's mine, if you think it's irrelevant, fine, it's just my opinion, I'm not studying for a degree or looking for points, I'm just expressing myself and my philosophy.

Fysh

Originally posted by remote viewer
To me it suggests that time is the result of physical existence.
in some strange way I equated time as the consequence of mass travelling at the speed of light…. squared
…and this statement sort of concured with the image I had

Well, it's not. What you get from that calculation is the total energy that would be unleashed by converting all of that mass into a massless form (which is where the speed of light part comes in - the faster you are going, the harder it is to accelerate, leading to a situation where it is unclear if a particle with a defined and significant mass can in fact be accelerated to the speed of light). Time doesn't come into this equation at all, under its generally accepted form.

Eg:
me=energy
so I just apply e=mc2 to the human condition and I find myself converted from matter to energy ..at some point. Some people consider this energy as the soul.

like my woolley physics?

I have a bit of a better idea of where you're going here, but nonetheless - the fact that you are stating "your own opinion" does not change the fact that you're taking a rigorously defined physical law (in this case, einstein's relation of energy and matter), throwing a very woolly definition into the mix (stating that you are energy), then suggest that this means you undergo a transition that you clearly cannot undergo (there is no such thing as pure energy, merely different material states in which it can exist - and I assure you, if you had transformed from a standard-issue human body into a form consisting entirely of gamma radiation [which, courtesy of Einstein's relation, can be considered either as a collection of particles or a wave pattern, but is not totally described by either interpretation], you would have great difficulty in posting on a message board in the same way as the rest of us, owing to the relative difficulties in such diverse problems as maintaining the chain reactions necessary to sustain life or the construction of a neural network consisting entirely of waveforms), then provide a throwaway reference to how some people consider this to be "the soul" (despite appending no explanation for how this works). Not to mention your lack of explanation of how you apply a physical formula to your again undefined "human condition".

And then you ask if, as a physicist, I like your woolly physics. And I have to confess that I don't. Because the perspective you are presenting does not, from your post, make ANY sense. It looks from where I'm sitting like you've grabbed a formula that everyone old enough to read has heard of at some point, read a bit about the mind-body problem, and then tried to make your post appear to be more deeply thought through than is in fact the case by adding random bits of pseudo science.

There is no hard and fast evidence for the existence, physical or otherwise, of the soul. This does not mean we cannot discuss it, but it does mean that discussing it from a physicist's perspective is, to say the least, misguided. I mean, it's somewhat akin to discussing the relative merits of unicorns for showjumping contests.

Why am I going on about this? Because philosophy is meant to be about coherent and logical thoughts, based on reasoning. A great part of this is having people try their hardes to tear your idea to shreds or find weaknesses in the reasoning. It requires disciplined thought and a lot of attention to detail. Otherwise we end up with a bunch of vague statements, none of which can be compared to each other or evaluated. But it doesn't matter, because everyone's just stating their opinion. :rolleyes:

keu

Originally posted by remote viewer
To me it suggests that time is the result of physical existence.
in some strange way I equated time as the consequence of mass travelling at the speed of light…. squared
…and this statement sort of concured with the image I had

and then I quoted the statement

time does exist but I just like to think that time is a consequence of matter not the other way round.

I was going to edit it, but I decided to wait for you to find the flaws for me.
basically you can't fathom the nature and essence of energy as I am applying it. ?? thats not my problem, it is a way that I can systemize my approach to metaphysics. My philosophy is based on that formula.

throwing a very woolly definition into the mix (stating that you are energy), then suggest that this means you undergo a transition that you clearly cannot undergo (there is no such thing as pure energy, merely different material states in which it can exist - and I assure you, if you had transformed from a standard-issue human body into a form consisting entirely of gamma radiation [which, courtesy of Einstein's relation, can be considered either as a collection of particles or a wave pattern, but is not totally described by either interpretation], you would have great difficulty in posting on a message board in the same way as the rest of us, owing to the relative difficulties in such diverse problems as maintaining the chain reactions necessary to sustain life or the construction of a neural network consisting entirely of waveforms), then provide a throwaway reference to how some people consider this to be "the soul" (despite appending no explanation for how this works). Not to mention your lack of explanation of how you apply a physical formula to your again undefined "human condition".

other than being one very very long scentence, thats as woolley as they come, because you cannot percieve the self as a form of energy. The rest of it is correct, I would have great difficulty posting, because I wouldn't have a body
thats the point I'm making.

suggesting a transition that you clearly cannot undergo

have you never heard of death?

And then you ask if, as a physicist, I like your woolly physics.

now thats just funny.

There is no hard and fast evidence for the existence, physical or otherwise, of the soul. This does not mean we cannot discuss it, but it does mean that discussing it from a physicist's perspective is, to say the least, misguided. I mean, it's somewhat akin to discussing the relative merits of unicorns for showjumping contests.

exactly, there is no fast evidence for the existance of the soul. This is the abstract.
there is no fast evidence to support the beginning of time either, this abstract has been defined through religion, borne of philosophy down through the ages.
Thats also why I posted a definition of metaphysics.

Because the perspective you are presenting does not, from your post, make ANY sense. It looks from where I'm sitting like you've grabbed a formula that everyone old enough to read has heard of at some point, read a bit about the mind-body problem, and then tried to make your post appear to be more deeply thought through than is in fact the case by adding random bits of pseudo science.

thats very mature of you.
maybe all those books you ate have made your brain all square and you just forgot how to be able to think outside the box...you genius you
...if you wish you could just make this a private board, y'know, or put a sign up over the door that requires knowledge of pythagorus theory before entering and all members would have to become vegetarian and celibate. Then as you begin to write your commandments in order to promote an ulterior race you could nominate your desciples in such a fashion as they would represent all the prime numbers, backwards.

...

anyway...as far as I could see, you just do not wish to see from my point of view that me=energy.
otay..lets agree to disagree.

Fysh

Originally posted by remote viewer
and then I quoted the statement...
I was going to edit it, but I decided to wait for you to find the flaws for me.
basically you can't fathom the nature and essence of energy as I am applying it. ?? thats not my problem, it is a way that I can systemize my approach to metaphysics. My philosophy is based on that formula.

Neither I, nor many other people who have undertaken to study physics around the world, are prepared to accept, on face value and with no detailed evidence, the assertion that "you are energy". You can try and pretend that your lack of detail in the definition is my ignorance, but you'll fail to convince anyone with a grounding in physics.

other than being one very very long scentence, thats as woolley as they come, because you cannot percieve the self as a form of energy. The rest of it is correct, I would have great difficulty posting, because I wouldn't have a body
thats the point I'm making.

At this juncture, I'll point out that you have previously defined yourself as energy ("me=energy" was the exact phrase, as I recall).

have you never heard of death?

Yep. Yet to see any evidence that death involves a transition of the self into a waveform, though.

exactly, there is no fast evidence for the existance of the soul. This is the abstract.
there is no fast evidence to support the beginning of time either, this abstract has been defined through religion, borne of philosophy down through the ages.
Thats also why I posted a definition of metaphysics.

Given that currently accepted theories (General Relativity) treat space and time as being related, and the general acceptance (which, by all means, does not imply irrefutable proof - merely that so far we haven't found a better theory) of the Big Bang theory as being the point at which our universe "began", I would say that actually, if you accept any of the evidence that supports the big bang theory, you have evidence for the beginning of time. The soul, being far more intangible than the passage and effects of time, does not fall into the same category.

I'm not entirely sure how time has been "defined through religion", however. They don't have a great deal to do with it, as far as I can tell. Although you might have been referring to the soul in that bit, so I could be wrong.

thats very mature of you.
maybe all those books you ate have made your brain all square and you just forgot how to be able to think outside the box...you genius you
...if you wish you could just make this a private board, y'know, or put a sign up over the door that requires knowledge of pythagorus theory before entering and all members would have to become vegetarian and celibate. Then as you begin to write your commandments in order to promote an ulterior race you could nominate your desciples in such a fashion as they would represent all the prime numbers, backwards.
...
anyway...as far as I could see, you just do not wish to see from my point of view that me=energy.
otay..lets agree to disagree.

Well, I'll thank you not to accuse me of being mature again any time soon (it's a quality I exercise in at best moderate amounts). Aside from that, I will quote the following excerpts from the charter of this forum:

"Try to express your ideas as clearly and unambiguously as possible as this avoids needless confusion arising and clouding the original debate"

"If you don’t understand another person’s post for some reason, ask them to explain what they meant."

"The most important quality for participating in this forum is your willingness to learn!"

Now, I've repeatedly pointed out that the parts of your post that I take umbrage at are those which start or include specific details of certain physical theories, then go off on some vaguely-defined spiritual tangent where no quantifiable statements can really be made, thereby rendering the usage of the original theory meaningless. I've also tried to explain why this does not work. If you don't want to take my comments on board, fine. But don't think that throwing a hissy fit and complaining about my entirely fictional desire to recruit the world into what would be an incredibly inefficient army will get you any sympathy.

Aside from all of the above, this still has very little to do with Time and is therefore offtopic for the thread.

simu

Stay on topic people - this tread is going nowhere fast!

If you want to discuss the soul/energy/how to argue/whatever, start another thread!

keu

If you don't want to take my comments on board, fine. But don't think that throwing a hissy fit and complaining about my entirely fictional desire to recruit the world into what would be an incredibly inefficient army will get you any sympathy.

I do take your comments on board, when they mean something, and so far they have been meaningless.(useless gestures without any meaning) I don't declare that physics isn't correct, but I do question such useage of it.
tbh I question the credibility of someone with a phsyics degree who has never heard of the m-theory (it's just a tad further on than the *big bang* theory) so if you were to suggest any aplication of that equation, I would be entirely glad to hear it.
btw..I'm not looking for sympathy.

Yep. Yet to see any evidence that death involves a transition of the self into a waveform, though.

There is indeed evidence to suggest this.
You just don't want to understand or accept it. (see above)

and just btw, I responded in relation to the thread on time. energy is related to this equation, particularly as einsteins str revolved around the equation of time,
also, you suggest I take the thread off topic, whereas you continually insist on doing so, (in order to deconstruct rather than help construct a clearer perspective) especially where you are not willing to offer an open minded opinion.

I feel I have made myself clear....I'm not here to write a thesis.
therefore you can stick your semantics up your

opening at the lower end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste is eliminated from the body.

the only thing I have learned so far is that physicists are anally retentive people.

I consider this thread locked too.

keu

heh..

ok..Simu, I apologise for the last post, it was out of order..will you try not to ban me
(i was having one of those days)

Fysh

Just quickly:

Yes, special relativity deals with time. the specific relation E=mc squared does not. Thus the conversion of the self into energy through application of m-theory is still off topic (I'm not saying it's not an intriguing idea, mind you).

As for M-theory itself, what I didn't recognize was the name. Having googled it and found out that you're talking about the follow on to superstring theory, I'll have you know that there's no undergraduate physics course I'm aware of which features it as part of the core curriculum, most likely because of the kind of maths involved in describing and manipulating an 11-dimensional universe. As a matter of fact, General Relativity isn't always included in the core curriculum either, although Special Relativity is.

Now, I know relatively little about M-theory, so if you want to start another thread to discuss m-theory and the self I'd be quite interested - however, some links on the stuff you've read would be handy.

So...getting back to time - I found this article an interesting read on the different perspectives that exist regarding the perception of time, the last section ("Metaphysics of time") in particular.

ecksor

Originally posted by remote viewer
heh..

ok..Simu, I apologise for the last post, it was out of order..will you try not to ban me
(i was having one of those days)

She might look upon your apology with more sympathy if you edited the post?

simu

Two things:

Firstly, I don't want to see any more insults, whether directed at individuals or groups, on this board. Anyone who engages in this type of behaviour from now on will get a week-long ban.

Secondly, if you want to address me, do so by PM rather than in the middle of a thread.

Georgiana

I confess to not having read (and not having time to read!)a great deal of this thread but still wanting to say something so forgive me if I'm off the track.
Before you consider whether time exists you have to be clear on what time is.
I would contend that time has no physical existence. Time is a mental concept in the mind of humans. It is a concept which describes the cycles of change of physical matter (both live and non live matter). That physical matter changes in form is presumably beyond dispute. Things grow and decay. Matter undoubtedly moves about in space and changes form but constituent elements are constant, at least in the vicinity of earth. Time is merely a way of describing changes of form. Yesterday it was a bud. Today it is a flower. Tomorrow it will be compost. I am probably saying something people will object to if I say humans have an overinflated view of their own place in the universe. I think humans may be a minor blip in the pattern of change on a universal scale. Human life is very very recent, relative to the age of the earth and what may lie beyond it. We are caught by the limitations of our brain in concieving of the vastness of reality both in terms of location and sequencing. We use the concepts of time and space as tools to help us with this ultimately incomprehensible territory. I think time and space are the two areas where human intelligence starts to runs into a brick wall and that where we begin inventing stuff like religion.

pro_gnostic_8

With respect, Georgiana, I have to ask if perhaps you are conferring our human "perception" of time with a greater importance than it deserves in the greater scheme of things. That perception is quite possibly a uniquely human notion. Does a single-cellular amoeba know what time is?

Time certainly is a causality in terms of entropy from the human objective. But, arguably, can a lower life-form make a past/present/future distinction within its subjective place in the world?

Georgiana

Very good point!

BEAT

If time doesnt exist, then what did I just waste by reading this thread?

My brain hurts :rolleyes:

Exit

A friend of mine told me once that he doesn't think time exists the way we believe it does. We tend to think of it as linear with a beginning and an end (past, present and future) and that we think of our lives as going somewhere. He said that he thinks we just live in the moment and that say this exact moment in time is no different than any random moment in time 1000 years ago for example (see, I'm using time to describe something ) Essentially, what he was saying is that our concept of time is just something we've created to explain everything.

Not saying I agree with him but I found it interesting.

Then again, if time doesn't exist in that sense, I wonder how the process of aging would be explained.

simu

Time certainly is a causality in terms of entropy from the human objective. But, arguably, can a lower life-form make a past/present/future distinction within its subjective place in the world?

The way I understand you here is that you're saying that humans perceive the effects of time within the framework of causality or entropy (they're not the same thing but they're related). I don't think lower life forms can make distinctions between past, present and future but that doesn't mean that awareness of time is unique to humans. I imagine you could have intelligent aliens who might have very different experiences of time to humans but who would have also worked out that entropy is increasing in the universe. What I'm saying is that entropy seems to be one of the fundamental features of our universe and even if our human way of understanding time is restricted by the type of brain we have, you can't just conclude that the whole idea of the flow of time is nothing but a product of those brains.

pro_gnostic_8

Originally posted by simu
I don't think lower life forms can make distinctions between past, present and future but that doesn't mean that awareness of time is unique to humans.

.

Certainly, the "awareness" of time cannot be a condition unique to the human species. Most life-forms from the basic to the complex are in some way reliant upon the circadian rhythms and seasonal changes of their environment. But that is a long way from saying that other creatures (on THIS planet ) have a perception of time and its influence as the causality of entropy.

Fysh

Surely the existence of time and its perception are two entirely different questions?

An example to demonstrate my meaning - take dogs. Reasonably similar to us as a species, although much less evolved in the brain. Dogs have a very limited perception of time, as far as our understanding goes, and a limited understanding of causality. If you catch a dog a couple of hours after doing something it's not supposed to (taken a crap in the kitchen, eaten the steak you were defrosting, dug up the flowers or whatnot) it's no good belting it round the nose with a newspaper or what have you - you can do so, but the dog will not form the link between the punishment and the errant behaviour until you can deliver the punishment no more than a few minutes after the event.

In computer terms, this limitation is to do with the number of registers available in their brain. A register being a single unit of memory able to retain information. Now, a brain or a computer that wishes to process information will have to have some way of comparing information. This means it needs to have at least two registers (ok, I'm oversimplifying here) which can be compared - and probably a buffer in which to store the results of comparison operations. As well as this, there is no way of processing information if there cannot be some change brought about by the act of processing. So it can be argued that any brain which can process information in the ways we currently understand has built into its design a dependence on time.

My point?

Well, we can have low-level lifeforms which require no information processing as part of their day-to-day life - bacterial cultures for example. It is very unlikely that these lifeforms will perceive time, but we can perceive time and we exist in the same universe as these other lifeforms. They may not perceive it or its passage, but they are still affected by it - in much the same way as we cannot perceive radio signals unless they are interpreted through electronic equipment, but at a sufficiently high signal strength they can still cause cancer.

keu

A friend of mine told me once that he doesn't think time exists the way we believe it does. We tend to think of it as linear with a beginning and an end (past, present and future) and that we think of our lives as going somewhere. He said that he thinks we just live in the moment and that say this exact moment in time is no different than any random moment in time 1000 years ago for example (see, I'm using time to describe something ) Essentially, what he was saying is that our concept of time is just something we've created to explain everything.

I like this, works for me.

simu

Originally posted by pro_gnostic_8

Originally posted by simu
I don't think lower life forms can make distinctions between past, present and future but that doesn't mean that awareness of time is unique to humans.

.

Certainly, the "awareness" of time cannot be a condition unique to the human species. Most life-forms from the basic to the complex are in some way reliant upon the circadian rhythms and seasonal changes of their environment. But that is a long way from saying that other creatures (on THIS planet ) have a perception of time and its influence as the causality of entropy.

I was saying that if there were other conscious species who had evolved on other planets, they might experience time quite differently than we do but still come up with a concept like entropy if they began to study the universe.