Definition Of Time?

[ollypenrice]

I'm going to insist that, in nature, there are absolutely no purposes until an intelligent being puts them there. It is tempting to say that the purpose of leaves is to allow photosynthesis to take place. It may be tempting but it is profoundly misleading and is an example of the way our subject-verb-object based language steers us unawares into misconceptions. I suspect that language grew up hand in hand with human actions and so we are predisposed to see purposes when what we should really be seeing are just consequences. Just an example, but consider the innocent phrase, 'It is raining.' What is raining?

Olly

[foundaplanet]

I'm going to insist that, in nature, there are absolutely no purposes until an intelligent being puts them there. It is tempting to say that the purpose of leaves is to allow photosynthesis to take place. It may be tempting but it is profoundly misleading and is an example of the way our subject-verb-object based language steers us unawares into misconceptions. I suspect that language grew up hand in hand with human actions and so we are predisposed to see purposes when what we should really be seeing are just consequences. Just an example, but consider the innocent phrase, 'It is raining.' What is raining?

Olly

I understand what you are saying and can not put up any decent argument against it.

It is quite probable that there is no point or purpose to anything whatsoever. Least, enjoy the day and spend as much time in every woken second...

[Cath]

The truth of the matter is that humans haven't got the foggyist idea of how, why or what the universe is about (inc's time). Sure, we are learning a bit about the mechanics of how a small part of it works - atomic structure, cause and effect etc etc, but that is all we are currently learning, it's just one level of it we are looking at.

Plus their is the problem of our point of view, we are 'apparently' looking at it from the inside out - we are each but a pin pwick within what appears to be an infinitely big whatever it really is. Or at least that's how it appears to be.

We are trying to create this model in our minds of where we are, what we are, how we are etc (purely by studying the mechanics of it), having been given no apparent clues, we just seem to have found ourselves suddenly in existence, without explanation, without guidence, without reason.

Can we be sure this model we are creating for ourselves is correct? ... no - is the only answer to that.

It's a tad strange to say the least, don't you think?

[ollypenrice]

Cath, I'm very confident about what the Universe is about. It isn't about anything. I really don't mind this, it doesn't make me nihilistic though it is a bit of a blow to the ego! But like most blokes I have an ego that could well do with the odd blow from a blunt instrument...

Olly

[Cath]

Cath, I'm very confident about what the Universe is about. It isn't about anything. I really don't mind this, it doesn't make me nihilistic though it is a bit of a blow to the ego! But like most blokes I have an ego that could well do with the odd blow from a blunt instrument...

lol Olly, I would whole heartedly agree that some blokes ego's need a right seeing too ... but who I am to judge, eh

Don't worry though, you seen to be cool as far as I'm concerned, good imagination and some good thinking you has

I would tend to agree with you anyway about the universe being about nothing.

Because of all the suffering in the world (which is no doubt also universal) I could never justify ANY reason for it, it would take a pretty selfish/unfeeling mind to come up with a justifiable reason for it all. Which is why I myself am also coming to the conclusion that their is no purpose or reason for it.

The more I've thought about it over the years, the stranger it gets.

[Jessun]

If I were in the middle of nowhere, meaning the blackness of space, where there is absolutely nothing, no stars, planets, light, nothing to see or hear or gauge with the senses, I'd have no way to measure time as we know it - I'd have no concept or awareness of time.

True, until you notice that you're dying! As a consequence of time.

There may be plenty other civilizations out there, rendering our puny observations and labelings pretty much useless in the bigger scheme of things. I refuse to elevate human awareness as something unique - something that universally defines anything at all.

Somewhere out there time is fully understood and mastered even, and you nip down to the supermarket to buy dark matter should you need it for some DIY project :-)

[symesie04]

Somewhere out there time is fully understood and mastered even, and you nip down to the supermarket to buy dark matter should you need it for some DIY project :-)

You mean like thickening the casserole?

[Jessun]

You mean like thickening the casserole?

Haha well we use clever induction magic or microwaves to warm it up now days - pretty far out really, so why not thicken that Predator casserole up a tad with dark matter!

Nice one!

Mods this could be off topic but it could also be true...

[ollypenrice]

We are made of baryons. Suppose we weren't, what might we see? (With regard to time or anything else.) We don't know, but at least we know that we don't know. Many commentators on science take the view that scientists over estimate what they know. I'm not a scientist, but the scientists I read do exactly the reverse. Their primary concern is the unknown, not the known, and their grasp of what is not known is very, very sophisticated. I like them. I like reading them.

Olly

[Thirdway]

lol Olly, I would whole heartedly agree that some blokes ego's need a right seeing too ... but who I am to judge, eh

Don't worry though, you seen to be cool as far as I'm concerned, good imagination and some good thinking you has

I would tend to agree with you anyway about the universe being about nothing.

Because of all the suffering in the world (which is no doubt also universal) I could never justify ANY reason for it, it would take a pretty selfish/unfeeling mind to come up with a justifiable reason for it all. Which is why I myself am also coming to the conclusion that their is no purpose or reason for it.

The more I've thought about it over the years, the stranger it gets.

Have a look at this lecture. Your question is one that can be answered and this lecture might give some realisations, even revelations about where the source of suffering is.

TED lectures are brilliant, I can and have watched them for a full day. They are all notable people in the field of science. Enjoy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

[ollypenrice]

Quite a performance. I'll keep my distance from that, I think.

Olly

[Treeden]

Have a look at this lecture...

That's very interesting. I'm glad that she recovered from her stroke and that she seems to be fit and well again.

As far as her lecture is concerned, I believe that she believes everything she says about her experience. I believe that her understanding of what happened during her stoke, and the revelation she experienced, is very real to her. Personally though, I don't think it is likely that we (ordinary people) can choose to ignore our brain's left hemisphere (the left cerebral cortex) and allow the right hemisphere to take us away to a place that she described as her personal nirvana. We can only make sense of our world by the combined influences of both of our cerebral cortices. I don't believe it would be healthy (or beneficial) in normal circumstances, for us to be able to switch from one to the other.

Maybe this is possible during a major physical trauma like a stroke? Maybe it could explain reports from survivors of other near-death situations that they felt themselves to be floating above their physical bodies and able to look down at themselves? Maybe there is a valid reason why this might indeed be the case in certain extreme situations?

As with most things in life, there is more that we don't know that that we do, but I don't believe we will be choosing to join her in "la la land" anytime soon.

[Thirdway]

That's very interesting. I'm glad that she recovered from her stroke and that she seems to be fit and well again.

As far as her lecture is concerned, I believe that she believes everything she says about her experience. I believe that her understanding of what happened during her stoke, and the revelation she experienced, is very real to her. Personally though, I don't think it is likely that we (ordinary people) can choose to ignore our brain's left hemisphere (the left cerebral cortex) and allow the right hemisphere to take us away to a place that she described as her personal nirvana. We can only make sense of our world by the combined influences of both of our cerebral cortices. I don't believe it would be healthy (or beneficial) in normal circumstances, for us to be able to switch from one to the other.

Maybe this is possible during a major physical trauma like a stroke? Maybe it could explain reports from survivors of other near-death situations that they felt themselves to be floating above their physical bodies and able to look down at themselves? Maybe there is a valid reason why this might indeed be the case in certain extreme situations?

As with most things in life, there is more that we don't know that that we do, but I don't believe we will be choosing to join her in "la la land" anytime soon.

It's definitely possible. Her description is very similar to using the practice of deep meditation. In her case the difference between (what she believes to be ) the two hemispheres was stark, distinct and I would only imagine disturbing. Deep Meditation, using a mantra results in the rising of inner stillness and what is referred to as "the witness". In exactly the same way there is a 'joining' with everything, while simultaneously living with everyday life. It is a more integrated way of being, having the benefits of decreased stress and improved health as a minimum, plus, far more as the practices continue.

I now suspect that deep meditation actually creates greater communication with both sides of the brain, it's very interesting because deep meditation is part of the practices of Yoga ( probably the most powerful part ) and Yoga means 'Union' . Union has been used to describe unity with the divine. Her description of the side that connected with the universe and divinity would certainly point in that direction. So union might indeed be at a far more local level of the brain which should make neuroscientists happier :-) ( no la la land or woo woo ).

It's quite a thought that over the years we have spent time developing the two parts of the brain almost independently. In most people the Maths, language, self talk sides have predominated in modern times, where the other side has been largely neglected, except for those who are strongly creative. It not unlike having two eyes and having one eye permanently closed. When both eyes are open we get stereo vision and perspective, we can see the extra dimension of depth.

If this is what meditation is doing, creating greater co operation between both sides, then, the result of that can be thought of as the ability to understand alternate dimensions.....exactly what the Indian Gurus always said, they talked of Astral planes, maybe that isn't quite as fanciful as it seems. Multi dimensional universes are all the rage with physicists. Maybe we can perceive the entire universe?

What I can say is that 3 years of meditation have revealed a degree of this integration. Not as stark as the woman in the video, but certainly just as much of a revelation and very similar in many ways.

[K Nixon]

Is Purpose not a human invention? It goes back to the need to create a deity- we all did it at some point in our history (not wishing to spark a god debate here - its just that all cultures created a god of sorts either because they each felt they needed one to give them purpose or because they each had good reason to create one - please don't start arguing the god thing! its a debate that never ends well.)

Things are. They just are. If you need a 'because' it comes down only to 'because they happen to work. If they didn't work they wouldn't be here.'

The idea is that all the constants that exist in the world (gravitation, permattivity of freespace, etc etc) could take any value. The values they take in our universe happen to allow things to work just nicely, gravity is strong enough to hold stars together and various factors allow nuclear fusion to happen etc etc we are here to talk about it. If one of them was too big or too small stars wouldn't work (or anyone of a multitude of other things wouldn't work) and either we would't be here to wonder or dimension would not be stable enough and the universe would have failed and ceased to exist.

For those more sci-fi-esque thinkers out there, consider that a multiverse exists where each possible combination of values exists for each of the constants. In some combinations the universe fails to initialise while in others it thrives. Maybe in some it limps along with gravity that is too weak or a speed of light that is too slow.

Either way it is like survival of the fittest on a universal scale. Who knew Darwin was a closet cosmologist...

Kieron

[ollypenrice]

Is Purpose not a human invention? It goes back to the need to create a deity- we all did it at some point in our history (not wishing to spark a god debate here - its just that all cultures created a god of sorts either because they each felt they needed one to give them purpose or because they each had good reason to create one - please don't start arguing the god thing! its a debate that never ends well.)

Things are. They just are. If you need a 'because' it comes down only to 'because they happen to work. If they didn't work they wouldn't be here.'

The idea is that all the constants that exist in the world (gravitation, permattivity of freespace, etc etc) could take any value. The values they take in our universe happen to allow things to work just nicely, gravity is strong enough to hold stars together and various factors allow nuclear fusion to happen etc etc we are here to talk about it. If one of them was too big or too small stars wouldn't work (or anyone of a multitude of other things wouldn't work) and either we would't be here to wonder or dimension would not be stable enough and the universe would have failed and ceased to exist.

For those more sci-fi-esque thinkers out there, consider that a multiverse exists where each possible combination of values exists for each of the constants. In some combinations the universe fails to initialise while in others it thrives. Maybe in some it limps along with gravity that is too weak or a speed of light that is too slow.

Either way it is like survival of the fittest on a universal scale. Who knew Darwin was a closet cosmologist...

Kieron

'Purpose' is certainly a human invention born of human language in which a doer does.

Darwin was also certainly a cosmologist and not a closet one in the sense that he knew full well that he had demolished at least one cosmology and perhaps all of them, as indeed he had, I suspect. Always remember with Darwin that 'fittest' meant 'most appropriate' and not 'strongest.' The language has changed over the years.

Olly

[Mr Q]

Time is the measurenent of motion .

if it doesnt move (vibrate) then it doesnt exist in our world (universe) and cant be measured using time .

But what about bringing a substance to very near absolute zero? I believe it has been done (within a degree?). At this temp, all molecular activity ceases but the substance still remains in existance as long as we keep it at this temp, if not, wouldn't it disappear into another universe?

[Thirdway]

It's a fascinating area of research. We cannot reach absolute zero and as we approach it, even the smallest change is likely to exhibit some interesting effects.

[ollypenrice]

Why select time as being the provenance of motion? Don't you need space as well?

Olly

[mdstuart]

Well what I do know is there is never enough time for everthing so if we can also find out how to make some more!!

Mark

[Albenn]

Definition of time? Just Wiki it. It's all there for you

[Treeden]

Definition of time? Just Wiki it. It's all there for you

Yes, but what do you think?

[Albenn]

It is the measurement between 2 non simultaneous events, the units of which have been defined by man derived from his study of celestial bodies.

Time will cease in zillions of years time as everything decays into radiation, nothing else can happen and therefore time will cease to exist.

Problem with that is, no-one will be around to say 'I told you so':D

[ollypenrice]

It is the measurement between 2 non simultaneous events, the units of which have been defined by man derived from his study of celestial bodies.

Time will cease in zillions of years time as everything decays into radiation, nothing else can happen and therefore time will cease to exist.

Problem with that is, no-one will be around to say 'I told you so':D

Simultanaity went out of the window under general relativity on cosmological scales so the term 'non-simultaneous events' is tautological, all events being non-simultanious if viewed by widely separated observers. Or such is my understanding.

I suspect your second point is self contradictory. If all matter decays into radiation then something is still happining - radiation! Radiation is surely something that happens in time and space. Remove either and nothing can radiate, no?

Olly

[Albenn]

I was asked by Treeden what it was that I thought. Alas, as my wife wasn't in at the time to tell me, I had to make something up off the top off my head!

Don't be too hard on me over the contradiction:D. I totally agree with you, but that's what it said in the book 'BANG' by Brian May and Patrick Moore....maybe I should have said when the radiation itself dissipates?

Anyway, I'm bailing out of this one as I am in way too far over my head and haven't finished reading 'A Brief History of Time' yet.

Great topic though and really interesting. I'm gonna keep looking at this one

[ollypenrice]

Heh heh, it's a killer. In fact I subsequently came up with a purely philosophical objection to the phrase, '(Time) is the measurement between 2 non simultaneous events' without any reference to physics. The word 'simultaneous' is meaningless without reference to time (it means at the same time) so it cannot appear in a definition of time without rendering the definition tautological.

Olly