Regarding Time.

Fleur

A thought came across my mind the other day.
Time- one of the most nessesary things to keep things in order, organized. Seconds, hours, Dates, months, years, etc.

I came to the conclusion that "Time" is a man-made invention; that time doesn't really exist and really, there's just…space.

I was discussing this with my friends and family the next day, but they believe that time isn't man-made. They claim they reached this conclusion because there are patterns in how the moon revolves around the earth, or how planets move around the Sun.
However, I don't find that a good backup; as there may be patterns, but time is just a way of recording those patterns.

It's kind of hard to put it into words, exactly.

But what I want to know what you guys think.

NeoShweaty

perhaps time as we know it doesnt exist (i.e. our concept of seconds, minutes , hours,etc. arent universely appliable) but i believe time does in one way or another exist. For example, we can say that certainly, we age and degrade overtime, correct? if there was only space, what would account for that? wouldnt we simply be here in the form we are forever, if there was no such thing as the passage of time?

However, time doesnt exist without space, one is intrisinically (sp?) tied to the other. Damn, if you had asked me this question a few months ago, i would have all the philosophical and scientific stuff i learned about in my head. I spent a year learning about how the great thinkers dealt with this stuff. I just cant seem to recall enough of it to make my point. However, there is time, imo, and there is only a past and a future, me thinks because every 'now' immediately becomes a then

*Meh*

If work can be defined as force applied to an object over time, then the lack of time tends to indicate a lack of work. "Work" in this instance is understood to mean any force applied to any object. This would include submitting a new thread by pressing keys on your keyboard and clicking with your mouse. In short, your very act of submitting this thread contradicts the theory that time is man-made, and not a fundamental constant of the universe.

NeoShweaty

ugh, who knew physics would come in handy again?

Fleur

@NeoShweaty:

perhaps time as we know it doesnt exist (i.e. our concept of seconds, minutes , hours,etc. arent universely appliable) but i believe time does in one way or another exist. For example, we can say that certainly, we age and degrade overtime, correct? if there was only space, what would account for that? wouldnt we simply be here in the form we are forever, if there was no such thing as the passage of time?

But that depends on how we define time, really.
Like you said, maybe there are two or more kinds of "Time".
But for know, I'm determined that the Dates and Hours are just like notes while you're observing something; it only helps you gain information.

Plus to me- there is no Past or Future, only the Present.

This is a rather confusing subject to talk about, though. My brain can't stay on one thought.

Local-chan

I'd still say that time is just a recording instrument, however, when you look at stuff like aging and stuff, it could be taking a different way.

Carly

You watched Beautiful Dreamer, didn't you.

GearSecond

I think it's more like, languages ar'nt properly made to handle the description.

It's there, but it's not how we oprganize it, but I don't meant o say we are wrong.

I am simply stating that we have, in english, named it Time, and by following te patterns we have come to a conclusion of a way to organize things that applies from everything to speed, to age which is directly a result of matabolism speed.

Time is basically so fast, in 1/100th of a millisecond billions of "frames" pass by.

So in our demension, time runs. Everything in is is set to run. Our matobolism makes us grow old as well as moniters the speed of bodily functions, the faster your matobolism the faster you age, and do thing(saily things like, restroom use and such) and usually faster matabolisms are triggered when you are helathier, which makes you live lnoger as well.

In all, things progress, and do their own thing, time is just a description of those patterns.

THis is exactly why I laugh whenever clocks have a direct effect on stories of time machines and stuff. CLocks are just there to show us what "time" it is where we are,so we can keep to a schedule. If you think aobut it things like daylights savings time are all just there as excuses to make it organized, and the record of time as many know it in line so it doesn't get out of whack. Leap Years? ANd extra day added to account for the loss of time over the cours eof a few years, which if we got rid of it added untrackable milliseconds into each day, which is alot eaiser to round off.

mr_bushido

Time, as we know it (minutes, seconds, etc), is a man-made idea… Time would be measured differently on different planets or star systems...

Dimensional Time (it is the 4th dimension, btw) is nothing more than a sequence of events… a flowing chronology, which affects & is affected by 3-Dimensional Space...

Cr4zy

It's funny how some of you are trying to sound smart. XD
Anyways, I had a run in with what time was, and I was discussing it with others in my school for a day. So I just decided to leave it be with my questions until I take physics.

captain usopp

I think the measurement of time is a man made thing, but time it's self does exist. It can be proven with the passage of time. As someone said. Things getting old, changing, the cycles of the moon, etc.

You could think of it this way too. "If a tree falls in the woods, but there is noone around to hear it, does it make a sound" :3

mr_bushido

@Mr.Prince:

It's funny how some of you are trying to sound smart. XD

Read some books before opening your mouth, son…

here's a few...

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
by Brian Greene. New York: Vintage Books, 2000

The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everything
by John R. Gribbin. Boston: Little and Brown, 1998

A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
by Brian Greene

Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
by Michio Kaku

Libraries are your friend

bennyb

Well the idea of time being man made isn't exactly an original one, but I agree with it. We are slaves to time only because our society is currently set up that way, but we are not meant to live as such. Everything is measured in time, therefore our lives revolve around it.

Buuhan1

I'll just resite one of my own personal quotes in reply to this thread.

Time is all of our Murderers.

Refii

Well you're right Fleur, the past no longer exists, and the future has not happened yet so it does not exist as well.

Like some philosopher (who's name I can't remember right now) said, what exists is like taking a knife and cutting it into time. It's less than milliseconds that exist, but our brain (in order to keep us sane) creates a collective idea of what the "present," and the past (through memories) is.

But I think you're having a thought I had a long time ago, that since time is a man made device it doesn't actually exist. We could have made it so that there are 40 hours in a day or something semantic like that to show its irrelevance.

But then, that thought gets buried into the back of your head and you start to realize something else, that time does in fact exist. It doesn't matter what units you use to measure it or how it is understood scientifically; you still experience it firsthand. If you didn't experience time you couldn't have posted, or breathe and so on.

Time exists, but as you get older; you realize it doesn't matter so much, long term. For example, I think about people living 2000 years ago, and how they walked on the ground I walked on and they built things, started religions etc, but in the end it doesn't affect me. It's just one of those things that affects your short term decisions, not so much the grand scale of things.

zeroxtb

oh man this is one of those threads that would kill a person who read this on LSD

NeoShweaty

how does the present exist? their is no now. There are events that have happened and events that have yet to happen. In order for their to be a present, then time would have to stop. Time is perpetually moving forward is basically what i am saying.

Refii

Because the present isn't "now" in the sense of time movement; the present is a slice of time so instantaneous we would have died off if our brain didn't make the present last longer as a chain of connected actions.

Such as "I am walking to school" is happening in the present, because we cannot comprehend "my body moved .00003 inches in a motion towards the north, as a sound vibration has reached the midpoint between me and my friend" because we don't view the world like this. The sound vibration reaches us and we consider that the present. We don't say:
So I spoke to my friend at 05:13:55, I sure hope he replies to me at 05:14:02

If you don't understand that concept, I can't explain it any clearer, I'm sorry.

NeoShweaty

@Refii:

If you don't understand that concept, I can't explain it any clearer, I'm sorry.

you make it seem like it was complicated… I got it

oceanizer

It kind of reminds me of "Momo" by Michael Ende (sp)…

GearSecond

Wair until we colonize other planets. THen we have to use local times! :P

*Meh*

Hmm, yes if the topic is "Are the units by which we measure time Arbitrary, and based solely on Earth's rotation and Solar orbit" then we can say that units of time are, indeed, man-made. It's not like the mice have a spare moment to make up units!

Captain Bowlton

time….

einstein said that time is one of the four dimensions that we as humans are capable of seeing in our everyday lives...

there are three spatial dimensions. left-right, up-down, and back-forth. add in time as the fourth dimension and you have the fabric of space-time, or the space-time continuum if you will.

if einstein's theory of general relativity is true (and it is, it has been relentlessly tested and proved experimentally over and over again) then the forces of gravity that we feel are just the result of large masses such as the earth and the sun 'warping' the fabric of space-time.

take, for instance, a black hole. imagine a star many times larger than our sun dying and the gravity of itself collapsing the entire mass of the star into an area only a few hundred miles across. the gravitational consequences of such a collapse would cause the fabric of space-time to warp so badly that even light could not escape. if someone were to theoretically enter a black hole, time for them would completely stop. someone observing the unlucky soul would see them 'freeze' in time as they passed the event horizon (the specific point at which there is no coming back from the black hole's gravitational pull).

what i'm trying to get at is that time can be regarded in two different ways. yes, the perception and measurement of time is an entirely human invention. we grow older, and use certain points of time in our lives as milestones. the hours of the day are a natural way for us to measure the things we've done, how long we have been alive, and so on. as far as physics are concerned, time is an integral part of the fabric of the universe; something that is very much real and something that has been experimentally proven to be relative to the beholder.

p.s. mr_bushido...great choice on books. i haven't read all of them, but the elegant universe is a must read. i'm currently in the middle of "Parallel Worlds", also by Michio Kaku. after i'm finished with that i'm moving on to John Gribbon's "In Search of Schroedinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality". this shit really is mindblowing. i'd be lying if i said quantum mechanics makes sense yet, hence why i'm reading schroedinger's cat. great thread though! hope what i said makes sense and is pertinent to the thread...

Refii

@Captain:

time….

take, for instance, a black hole. imagine a star many times larger than our sun dying and the gravity of itself collapsing the entire mass of the star into an area only a few hundred miles across. the gravitational consequences of such a collapse would cause the fabric of space-time to warp so badly that even light could not escape. if someone were to theoretically enter a black hole, time for them would completely stop. someone observing the unlucky soul would see them 'freeze' in time as they passed the event horizon (the specific point at which there is no coming back from the black hole's gravitational pull).

I saw that on Stargate, great episode :happy:

Captain Bowlton

thats what i love about theoretical physics…it really sounds like science fiction. there are so many unknowns, and the implications of the new big theory of everything (M-Theory) really sound even crazier than the wildest science fiction that is based in our universe.

and it could all be very much real...the only regret that i have is that i may never live to see whether these theories are true or not.

aside from that, the stuff that we already know is truly mindblowing. the fact that we, as humans, are able to deduct and observe such crazy things about the universe, from the farthest galaxy down to the subatomic level, with the relatively primitive technology that we have, is truly amazing.

kinda makes me feel a wee bit insiginificant though...thats why i have things like one piece to keep my mind from racing about what the point of life is :p

Chlodwig Shillingsfürst

When did you all start to think "The Third Policeman"-ish?