Time

[Olly1990]

I have been intrigued by time for some years now and would like to hear from people to see what there own theories are.
Do you feel we are ruled by time? or That we rule time?
Is time eternal or will it end? I feel that our lives are governed by time and that nothing can exterminate it. We may have invented the concept of time but we did not invent time itself.
It is fair to say I have watched BBC fours TIME series to get the inspiration for this thread!! :D

So, any views, theories etc??

:unsure:

[Vladislav]

Fuck time. I'm always late for school because of it. We cannot control time obviously. Time can be a pain and it can be a help at the same time. That's all I can think of right now.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Olly, check out Rupert Read's site (the link to which I posted on the thread on Kuhn), where (in some of his essays) you will see he defuses traditional theories of time.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j339/

However, he argues from a Wittgensteinian angle (which is not to everyone's liking, since this approach is aimed at stopping us asking questions like 'what is tme?' -- not because we should not ask them, but because they are the wrong questions to ask).

This is, of course, the method I also use.

[Voulacce]

No fucking idea... :ph34r:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Olly, I have just checked the link I posted, and the ones on time do not seem to work.

I'll try to find alternatives.

[Olly1990]

Rosa, thank you anyway!


This thread is proving difficult to keep flowing! Maybe someone can suggest any sub-topics within time such as Physical, Mental, Cosmic etc to try and get this thread going. Maybe there are very negative views about what I am debating, or maybe you feel that the topic needs some annotation to flow! :unsure:

:blink:

[drain.you]

Time....
I believe that time is like a video or something and each moment exists by itself, occurring forever. i believe in fate so i think that time ahead of us is mapped iut already and we cant change what it brings. i think time will always exist and always has, hard to imagine that time ever began or that it will end, maybe there will be noone to experience after we are all wiped out.

[ComradeRed]

I know that in physics, we're entertaining the idea of time being discrete -- like turns in a game of chess rather than "turns" in a game like king of the hill.

It's damn hard stuff, especially if you take into account the Lorentz effect :o

Stuff to ponder, I guess...

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 02:57 AM
I know that in physics, we're entertaining the idea of time being discrete -- like turns in a game of chess rather than "turns" in a game like king of the hill.

It's damn hard stuff, especially if you take into account the Lorentz effect :o

Stuff to ponder, I guess...
There exists no smaller moment of time than the 'Planck time.' This is the time it takes a photon (travelling at the speed of light) to cross a 'planck length' which is the smallest unit of length. Nothing can change in this tiny unit of time. Time is not a continuous flow, but comes in lumps like energy.

It seems that physics is finding that everything comes in 'discrete packages.' Everything that exists has a fundamental tiniest size.

Time is still very mysterious and if you believe the big-bang theory then you must profess that time came to exist when the universe did.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dissenter, I think you are confusing the measurement of time with time itself (or perhaps, one of the current definitions of a minimal time interval) with time.

Of cousre, if a photon travels a Planck distance, we can speak about it being half way, or one third of the way (etc.), across that interval (if not, then we cannot speak of it travelling across that spatial interval to begin with), and if we can do that then a Planck time interval cannot be the shortest time interval.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 24 2006, 01:23 PM
Dissenter, I think you are confusing the measurement of time with time itself (or perhaps, one of the current definitions of a minimal time interval) with time.

Of cousre, if a photon travels a Planck distance, we can speak about it being half way, or one third of the way (etc.), across that interval (if not, then we cannot speak of it travelling across that spatial interval to begin with), and if we can do that then a Planck time interval cannot be the shortest time interval.
Planck time is the smallest unit of time!
I don't understand what you mean by saying that I am confusing the measurement of time with time itself.

You cannot say that the photon has traveled half way, that is the whole point. That is the way it is. This doesn't break the quantum laws, it just confuses some people. The photon reached the end of the planck length in one planck time not under that time. The photon did not go half way in half a planck length. It is impossible to say that.

The begining of the universe is calculated from the end of the first 'planck time' as it is pointless to find out what happened 'before' as nothing could have happened.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae281.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_epoch

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

For a 'dissenter' you are remarkably accommodating of conventional ideas (ones that will probably change when the Higgs Boson fails to turn up, to say nothing of the mythical 'graviton'):

"Planck time is the smallest unit of time!"

Now, if you had have put two "!!" marks at the end of that sentence, you know, I think I might have agreed with you. But, one...come on!!!

So, once again, but slower this time (and not even this Planck time): you are confusing time with its measurement, which is about as sensible as confusing a metre (or a yard) with whatever we use these to measure.

And, thanks for the links, but I am aware of modern Physics (I have a maths degree).

"You cannot say that the photon has traveled half way, that is the whole point."

Well, you are ruling this out by a definition, a bit like the way that Physicists used to rule out circular (or rather, non-rectilinear) motion in the vicinity of the earth a few hundred years ago, and then changed their minds when reality disagreed.

My response is, among other things, to say that you cannot then use the word "travel" to tell us what a photon does in its 'journey' across a Planck interval, or if you do want to still use this word, you must be using it in a new and as yet unexplained sense.

That's OK, Physicists do this all the time (non-Planck, that is), but that just makes Physics conventional, and thus not the least bit 'objective' (since its truths will then be artefacts of a quirky use of words, and not dependent on reality).

"The begining of the universe is calculated from the end of the first 'planck time' as it is pointless to find out what happened 'before' as nothing could have happened."

But, you should try to keep up; some Physicists think the universe expands and contracts continually; so there was a 'before'. [For example:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/big_rip_030306.html

http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/kenny/papers/cosmo.html]

I do not agree with them (in fact, I cast a plague on both your houses), but you should run your "nothing could have happened" past them, not me; I suspect they will be even less impressed.

And perhaps you would like to tell us now how you managed to say the impossible:

"The photon did not go half way in half a planck length. It is impossible to say that." [Oops, you just did!]

If it's a length, it can be halved. If it can't, then it is not a length.

That is one convention you would be well-advised not to mess with.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2006, 09:28 AM
Do you feel we are ruled by time? or That we rule time?

I wonder if that question really makes sense. Time is a dimension, and so, yes we have no choice but to 'conform' to it. If there was an answer I'd say we were ruled by time.


Is time eternal or will it end?

I couldn't honestly say. Time certainly isn't consistent. On moving objects, time progresses slower than it does relative to a static object. So, perhaps we have some 'powers' over time, but nothing of significance.


I feel that our lives are governed by time and that nothing can exterminate it. We may have invented the concept of time but we did not invent time itself.

In the same way we didn't invent up down left right or any three-dimensional proportions. We are very much subject to the laws of this 11th dimension.


It is fair to say I have watched BBC fours TIME series to get the inspiration for this thread!! :D

Horizon occasionally has some good discussions around the progression of time.

[dislatino]

Time is an interesting topic, it is just so expanse, to really give an attempt at trying to philosphise with it, your looking to write a book lol.

But hey, I think that Time is Space, Space is Immense and also Dense, Time is a subjective passed down to us, while Space exists and co-exists.

The Space of time comes from the Time of space, lieterally and non-literally.

As you could probably tell by now it's like i'm talking rhetoric, i don't mean to thats just the statement that flowed out my head for now.

There is just so much categories and sub-categories that i can't begin to try and explain a theory which doesn't contradict an awful lot.

[ComradeRed]

Actually, dissenter, Rosa has a point. Afterall, isn't planck's shorter constant used instead of planck's constant? For all we know, there may very well be an expression of time in terms of, say, space!

What if the speed of light isn't constant thoguh? It depends on the amount of energy in the photon? You the the relation E=hl for the wavelength l, and some constant h. What if we mess around with this? Then we can't use the Planck scale.

And if the speed of light isn't constant, Einstein's stuff is still valid, just in need of a little rewrite ;) The important aspect of his theories is the relativistic parts, which is invariant to changes in speed.

[Chrysalis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2006, 10:06 PM

This thread is proving difficult to keep flowing! Maybe someone can suggest any sub-topics within time such as Physical, Mental, Cosmic etc to try and get this thread going. Maybe there are very negative views about what I am debating, or maybe you feel that the topic needs some annotation to flow! :unsure:


Olly:

Two theories of time you might want to get familiar with: presentism and eternalism. These topics are part of metaphysics, most specifically part of the discussion on concrete particulars and the nature of time. Presentism gives ontological privilege status to what are existing and happening "now" or at present. According to this view, the only thing that's real is what's existing now or happening now. Tenses are important to presentists---they do acknowledge that the past were once existing and happening, and the future will means things will be coming to existence, but at present they are not called real or existents. Nothing in the past and the future can be said to be real.

Eternalism, on the other hand, acknowledges all that exist and had existed, and that all that happen and had happened are real and existents. All time and everything in it. The "now" and "present" aren't ontologically privileged. Dead presidents, by-gone eras, extinct animals, societies, and people are real as those in the present.

Okay, just a rough for now. I hope you check these out.

[ChemicalBrother]

Time is not real; it is made real when we schedule our lives around arbitrary digits and numerals.

"Man is entrapped in a web of relations he himself has created"

Time is exactly that to me, a relationship that man created to organize the natural world in a way he can rationally comprehend. The fact is that systematic chaos (entropy) is inevitable, and time is the agency of resistance to this entropy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chemical: Ok, but you might find it difficult to explain what this non-real thing is the rest of us call 'time'.

But then you say it's a relation; so is it a real relation or a fictional one?

If the former, how does it relate things if it does not exist?

[If it does exist, then it must be real, one would think.]

If the latter, how is it different from nothing at all? In which case, how can it relate anything, even in the imagination?

But then you speculate that tinme is a 'resistance' (could it do this if it were unreal?).

Forgive me for saying this, but you (like St Augustine) do not seem to know what to think about time.

The solution is very simple; so simple that for 2500 years every single philosopher missed it, even though ordinary folk got it right.

"What is it?" I hear you ask.

Time is what out language about it says it is, and since the latter is complex, there is no one thing that time is (i.e., it is not an 'it').

Disappointing, but correct.

[Of course, physicists study something else called 'time', which they cannot make their minds up about, annoyingly spelt the same way; but we should no more be fooled by that than we are by our different use of words like "bank" (system of institutionalised theft), "bank" (the side of a river), or "bank" (how aeroplanes turn).]

[ChemicalBrother]

The relation is very real, but I think you've misunderstood what I meant by this relation.

I believe that time is not real, but a social construction. This social construction is not real to me because without adequate technology to define time, it would not exist. Even a sundial has no significance if taken out of its social context.

Time is not real because it is a social construction that can be altered and shifted according to it's perception; if everyone agreed that we should add a 13th hour, then it could be done.

Time becomes real when we empower it with social meaning; without that social context it is not real.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chemical, thanks for those comments, but as I said, you are going to have your work cut out explaining what exactly is not real about time, or otherwise. Calling it a 'social construction' merely masks this difficulty. So, what exactly has been constructed socially? And how is it that everyone agrees with it, if no one can say what it is?

I think you are making the mistake everyone has traditionally made of assuming that there is one thing here called 'time' which must be this, or that, or the other. In short you are treating the word "time" as the name of something.

In order to do that you have to ignore the many different ways we already speak about time, and then focus on your own choice (which choice, again, like everyone else's before you, does not correspond to any of the ways we already speak about it). In this way you sever all links with a familiar word, and no wonder you end up floundering. [This is not to pick on you -- everyone does this.]

You are then faced with the unenviable task of dreaming up a likely story to account for your own idiosyncratic use of this word -- in short you are rather like someone who speaks about, say, the castle in chess as if it were a real building (thus ignoring the role it already plays in chess), and then asking what the rent is, or who owns it.

You can see this by the way that you speak about 'it' becoming this or that, when we do this or that to 'it'.

See if you can spot a common element in all of these (not just some):

"What time is it?"

"I had the time of my life."

"In time, you will see I am right."

"Thus time, try not to jump too far."

"Time me; I am going for the record."

"For the last time, stop complaining!"

"Time I wasn't here."

"I am just killing time watching TV all day."

"Times they are a changing."

"Three times four is twelve."

"There was a time when I would have forgiven you."

"That was a well-timed intervention."

"I did a time trial last week."

"We had some good times together."

"That is six times you have asked that question."

"Time waits for no man."

"A stitch in time saves nine."

"In olden times people were more oppressed than they were exploited."

"Time is a great healer."

"Only time will tell if you are right."

"Have we got time to visit the museum?"

"Your timing is out on your engine."

"Your timing is out in your music."

"Let the good times roll!"

This list can be extended many times over...but I think you get the picture.



We have an enormously complex language, but traditional philosophy has ignored this, and imposd on our collective understanding of time (and indeed on practically everything else) a crude and incomprehensible [i]a priori structure that bears no relation to what we mean by this word (or, set of typographically similar words).

High time this changed....