The Block Universe

[Zingu]

I'm reading a book; "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point" which has combined writings on philosophy and physics.

One of the arguements in the book is that our concept of the flow of time (past->present->future) is purely subjective and caused by temporal asymmetry of own minds.

In reality, there is no such thing as the flow of time as an objective fact.


So where do you stand, do you think that the flow of time, as we perceive is subjective or objective?

[Ifoughtthelawandiwon]

I think that time is the forth dimention and as such changes laterally on its own plane although we being 3d in thinking cannot measure this differences as we can only use 3d methods to try and measure it and these are warped at exactly the same time as time itself so its like tring to measure the warping of space with a ruler that gets warped in the space, to measure the 'bend' in time you need a 4d or 5d measuring device.

[Major. Rudiger]

Time is totally subjective... Lets pull up a example... :unsure: ...
Say your playing a game of Counter-strike or (insert game here, it dosnt matter), To you time is going to go faster, then the person right beside you whos saying nothing. Your Brain is numb and not opareting, its only useing basic motor skills and basic thinking (click here, cruch, Stand up, open fire). Playing active games (fast vedio games or sports) your brain is <_< useing less thinking power. So time well go faster, becuase (I dont know, only through personal experaince, time speeds up when im phsicaly active, or playing a vedio game, and sometimes borad games. Can anyone finish this for me)...

But say the other kid whos watching, or if you doing a some hard math questions (also I found out that the same effects well happen under the inflence of certain drugs). Time well go alot slower then reguler... My guess is that your useing your brain more and more blood is going up in the brain, so time well Pressive slower.

Time is objective if you look into a history text book... But if you look into your mind you have moments where time flew by or it felt like its eternity.

I was think about this for some time... Say if you have two speices of man from different planets. One planet has 24 hours and the other has 12 hours... Say you put them on a space station or something. Would the man who came from the 12 hours planet would be twice as fast becasue he came from a 12 hour day planet.

[comrade_mufasa]

Major. Rudiger I&#39;m the oppisite. When I play video games time goes slower for me. Yet, when I&#39;m sitting in phisics calss doing equtions time goes by extreamly fast, but it might be becouse I do all of my math extreamly fast then check it 100 times.

[Major. Rudiger]

lol thats really interasting...But dont you see time is subjective to everyone, and probley everything.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

In reality, there is no such thing as the flow of time as an objective fact.

I would disagree. I think that the existance of entropy in the universe is a strong indicator that the forward flow of time is objective.

It&#39;s easier to scramble an egg than unscramble it.

[Parkbench]

i never understand psuedosciences like this. philosohpy is one thing, but it get so a point where you&#39;re just making shit up.

The problem with New Age theories is very crucial: they are always wrong. They do not base their theories on any semblance fact, but rather concoctions thought up while in the shower. This is not to say "thinking outside the box" is bad, but people misinterpret this and release things like The Celestine Prophecy and think they&#39;re being progressive. No, they&#39;re just being stupid.

It assumes there&#39;s an almost movie-like palpable "time." What is this? Fucking Chrono Trigger? Time is a frame of reference--like money it doesn&#39;y really exist. Right now I am typing. In a few minutes, I will have typed. It is past tense: one thing happens, and someting else happens after it. It&#39;s not a flow. It&#39;s not a video-game. It&#39;s not a book or a movie. It&#39;s just things happening one after another.

But you might say, "wait&#33; we can not even perceive of another way time could occur&#33;" That&#39;s right--because there is no other way.

No vortexes, no portals, no time warps.

[Che NJ]

time will always be moving in one direction so it will always be impossible to unscramble an egg, but people&#39;s perception of the passage of time will never be the same.

If you want to get into science i don&#39;t fully understand, i&#39;ve heard of an experiment proving that time passes faster in certain places than it does in others. In the experiment (i think) 2 sattelites with clocks circle the earth on different orbits. Apparently the sattelites were recovered showing different times on their clocks. This supposedly happened because the sattelites passed over parts of the earth with varyying levels of gravitational intensity. Again, i don&#39;t fully understand it, (nor am i motivated to.)

Also, just wondering if anybody has ever read kurt vonnegut&#39;s slaughterhouse 5. It&#39;s about a guy who becomes lost in time and starts living out the events of his life in a random order. He ends up like that because he meets some aliens who see things in four dimensions (the fourth is time.) It&#39;s a pretty fucked up book, but its was a good read.

[Parkbench]

vonnegut is one of my favorite authors. i&#39;ve read slaughter-house five, cat&#39;s cradle, breakfast of champions, and now i am reading sirens of titan. he&#39;s truly brilliant.

yeah, it was ironic and poignant. still don&#39;t think it has any bearing on any of this.

as for the satellites, that sounds like a mechanical issue, like putting a magnet to a computer--but this is based off of your paraphrase, which itself is unsure, so i won&#39;t get into that i suppose.