Definition Of Time?

[Thirdway]

All that can be said is that it has one direction... QUOTE]

Nooooo.... not even that can be said. We perceive it to have one direction, yes. But that may just be a characteristic of the way we see it. I have a deep feeling that this is so.

Quantum physics may have glimpsed a wider reality in which time's arrow ceases to be what it was. Richard Feynman discovered that it is impossible to distinguish between a positron and an electron travelling backwards through time. That is, for me, the most tantalizing discovery in science.

Olly

Yes, totally. It doesn't really matter which way around it is though you see? That's perceptual as well. So it might as well be said to point in one direction or we are not going to get on with anything. You have to trust something even if it cannot be verified. So water runs down hill because you cannot remember it running uphill, people get older because you can't remember seeing them get younger. Ultimately it all occurs in Infinite, timeless awareness so we can stop searching for meaning because there never was any.

[nickdud]

time is something we all have plenty of until we need it the most!

[richbyers]

you could do the sheldon cooper test (big bang theory)

- if we ever build a time machine we will agree to come back to this point in time to prove we do......(no one turns up) .....well thats dissapointing

[Treeden]

... Make sure you don't waste any more. Start knitting umbrellas.

I'm busy doing nothing

working the whole day though

trying to find lot's of things not to do

I'm busy going nowhere

Isn't it just a crime?

I'd like to be unhappy, but...

I never do have the time!

[ollypenrice]

Really? I can't argue with Feynman, but that doesn't make sense to me. Two protons smash together, releasing a positron and a neutrino. In the Feynman world, what does this mean? Does an electron travelling back in time somehow manage to hit the two protons just at the moment of fusion? Does the fusion create an electron sent backwards in time? If so, why do we see the positron gonig 'forward' in our time?

Scroll down to the section on Antimatter here for a Feynman diagram.

Retrocausality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All will be revealed (and pigs might fly!!!)

Retrocausality... Eek.

Olly

[redgiantjohn]

i was having a discussion earlier about the 'present' i was saying that surely the present (now) cannot exist we are being pulled from past to future constantly so as soon as 'now' is here its gone. i mean whats the smallest possible lenghth of time with any meaning? a planck second? no matter what length of time now is its not now anymore its then and now is not now its then etc i dont know time really is strange

[ollypenrice]

i was having a discussion earlier about the 'present' i was saying that surely the present (now) cannot exist we are being pulled from past to future constantly so as soon as 'now' is here its gone. i mean whats the smallest possible lenghth of time with any meaning? a planck second? no matter what length of time now is its not now anymore its then and now is not now its then etc i dont know time really is strange

I think you are right, strictly speaking. 'The present' is a conventional term that means one thing to someone observing a fast changing situation and another thing entirely to, say, a geologist. I can imagine a language in which no term for 'present' existed at all. Maybe it is a spurious and misleading term which we should remove from out minds! What it really does is identify a boundary between two states, that which can be known (the past) and that which cannot (the future.)

Olly

[Mr Q]

Wow! Nice responses. Some of you cheated a bit with long definitions but they were indeed educational.

We all seem to have our own definition of time from what we were taught throughout our lives and my thread's goal was to see if some people could reduce its concept down to a short statement - which is very hard to do but it does stimulate the mind to ponder such things.

From what Iv'e read so far, I agree that time does exist with or without us being aware of it. So will we ever come up with a hard definition of time? That was my goal with this thread - to see how close we could get, if possible.

With that, it's TIME to get back to your responses.

[Thirdway]

This is no past or future. There is only this moment. All images of the past are memories. If you watch a drop of water make its way down a window, you can only know because your memory is of its previous position, but it's previous position no longer exists except in your memory. If you were unable to remember the previous position, then the water drop would always appear frozen in one set position as you have nothing to compare it to.

What should be more interesting is that you are aware of objects but they are not aware of you. So, if it is only you that has awareness, then all objects and time are within that. This shows the situation that exists between object and awareness, neither can exist without the other. Nothing can happen outside awareness. You cannot have light without dark. They co-exist. So if you ask the question " what would it be like without light " ? Then the answer would not be "dark" neither would exist because the opposite is not present. Without time everything would not be static, it would not exist. So you can only describe time in relation to matter and awareness. If any of these do not exist, then nothing exists.

[Thirdway]

Wow! Nice responses. Some of you cheated a bit with long definitions but they were indeed educational.

We all seem to have our own definition of time from what we were taught throughout our lives and my thread's goal was to see if some people could reduce its concept down to a short statement - which is very hard to do but it does stimulate the mind to ponder such things.

From what Iv'e read so far, I agree that time does exist with or without us being aware of it. So will we ever come up with a hard definition of time? That was my goal with this thread - to see how close we could get, if possible.

With that, it's TIME to get back to your responses.

You keep saying 'us' because you see yourself as separate. You are part of the universe. There is no way of separation. No awareness, no time, no space, no matter. It's all one.

[Treeden]

i was having a discussion earlier about the 'present' i was saying that surely the present (now) cannot exist we are being pulled from past to future constantly so as soon as 'now' is here its gone...

I would say it does exist.

If you imagine yourself standing still with the past behind you and the future ahead of you, does that mean you don't exist? You might look over your shoulder to see what has just transpired, or you might look forward and try to imagine what might be. In either case you exist in that moment between the two.

I would say we are being pulled from the present to the future. I agree though that you can argue about the length of the present moment.

[richbyers]

i recommend stephen hawking's THE GRAND DESIGN (the book itself has mixed reviews, it is basic, however i like the format, and yes ill admit it- i need basic on this ))- more specifically alternate histories chapter to anyone who is interested in this subject, as it deals with quantum physics and the double slit experiment. it deals with the theory that the past can theorectically be changed by actions in the present, just like the future can be changed by the present, via delayed choice experiements

[Islander]

The inexorable progression of entropy.

[richbyers]

ahh but time isnt just progression, it can be the opposite- or both or even neither?

[ollypenrice]

The inexorable progression of entropy.

The inexorable progression of order. See it backwards. Why are you so sure that your orientation is absolute? Are Australians the wrong way up?

Olly

[foundaplanet]

Time is how we con ourselves into existence.....

[ollypenrice]

Time is how we con ourselves into existence.....

Could you say just a little more? I'm old and dim...

Olly

[RikM]

I think of time as a convenient method for describing the order of a sequence of events and units of time as a means of expressing the separation between those events. What it actually is I have no idea.

[Nillchill]

Time is our perception of the duration we experience of successive photons of light leaving an observed event hitting the back of our eyes and being registered by our brain and as such is relative to the experience of each being, entity or object experiencing that event.

[Earl]

Time is our perception of the duration we experience of successive photons of light leaving an observed event hitting the back of our eyes and being registered by our brain and as such is relative to the experience of each being, entity or object experiencing that event.

What if your blind? or got your eyes shut?

[Nillchill]

then your perception of time is different, try looking at a clock, then close your eyes and estimate how long 3 minutes is, then reopen them ..... see just how accurate you are.

[Islander]

The inexorable progression of order. See it backwards. Why are you so sure that your orientation is absolute? Are Australians the wrong way up?

Olly

That would lead to a bit of a problem with the second law of thermodynamics

[ollypenrice]

That would lead to a bit of a problem with the second law of thermodynamics

My point about Australians was careless, you are right.

The second law's' relationship with time (that it would require an input of energy to 'drive time into reverse') is posited on the 'tensed view of time' - that there is a past a present and a future. In that context the second law makes sense. But if the tensed view of time is really only a local approximation then, in a more generalized theory, the second law would be overthrown.

I'm not even slightly inclined to believe that our view of past-present-future is a complete view and so the second law doesn't have to be a constraint in whatever a more complete view might entail.

Olly

[Mr Flibble]

Time is a measurement for a change to take place. Or at least that's what my GCSE physics teacher said. This implies to me that its purely (wo)man made. But apparantly time started with the/a big bang. So my guess is that time is just a mechanism thats used, but it may not be a true representation of what its trying to define.

[JulianO]

Time is natures way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once. -- Woody Allen

Amusing and profound at the same time!