Does time exist?
- Thread starter Asexperia
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Time as an indication of change is real. Change does occur.
2, 3 & 4 — are biased questions and can not be answered!
However, time as a measurement of change is subjective and how one measures or refers to time or change may be an a priori element, of almost any observation. Dependent entirely on variables specific to the observation.
So change is real and absolute and time the measurement of change is subjective...
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
First, you said that time as an indication of change is real, and later you said that time, the mesaurement of change, is subjective.
Is time real or subjective?
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time:
By Sean Carroll
1. Time exists.
2. The past and future are equally real.
3. Everyone experiences time differently.
4. You live in the past.
5. Your memory isn’t as good as you think.
6. Consciousness depends on manipulating time.
7. Disorder increases as time passes.
8. Complexity comes and goes.
9. Aging can be reversed.
10. A lifespan is a billion heartbeats.
Some important extracts from Carroll's extended explanations:
[1]The real question is whether or not time is fundamental, or perhaps emergent. We used to think that “temperature” was a basic category of nature, but now we know it emerges from the motion of atoms. When it comes to whether time is fundamental, the answer is: nobody knows. My bet is “yes,” but we’ll need to understand quantum gravity much better before we can say for sure.
[9] Reversing the arrow of time for living organisms is a technological challenge, not a physical impossibility. And we’re making progress on a few fronts: stem cells,yeast, and even (with caveats) mice and human muscle tissue. As one biologist told me: “You and I won’t live forever. But as for our grandkids, I’m not placing any bets.”
[10] about one and a half billion, if you simply must be precise. In that very real sense, all animal species experience “the same amount of time.” At least, until we master #9 and become immortal.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/c...everyone-should-know-about-time/#.VgiJmeyqqkp
By Sean Carroll
1. Time exists.
2. The past and future are equally real.
3. Everyone experiences time differently.
4. You live in the past.
5. Your memory isn’t as good as you think.
6. Consciousness depends on manipulating time.
7. Disorder increases as time passes.
8. Complexity comes and goes.
9. Aging can be reversed.
10. A lifespan is a billion heartbeats.
Some important extracts from Carroll's extended explanations:
[1]The real question is whether or not time is fundamental, or perhaps emergent. We used to think that “temperature” was a basic category of nature, but now we know it emerges from the motion of atoms. When it comes to whether time is fundamental, the answer is: nobody knows. My bet is “yes,” but we’ll need to understand quantum gravity much better before we can say for sure.
[9] Reversing the arrow of time for living organisms is a technological challenge, not a physical impossibility. And we’re making progress on a few fronts: stem cells,yeast, and even (with caveats) mice and human muscle tissue. As one biologist told me: “You and I won’t live forever. But as for our grandkids, I’m not placing any bets.”
[10] about one and a half billion, if you simply must be precise. In that very real sense, all animal species experience “the same amount of time.” At least, until we master #9 and become immortal.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/c...everyone-should-know-about-time/#.VgiJmeyqqkp
I think this falls under the "other" option. My view is that time simply passes, but our measurement of the rate that time passes varies with the energy density of the local environment.
I was told once by an old GR expert professional that time does not really pass or flow......I did not accept that on face value at that time.....
http://news.mit.edu/2015/book-brad-skow-does-time-pass-0128
extract:
He would know: Skow himself doesn’t believe time passes, at least not in the way we often describe it, through metaphorical descriptions in which we say, as he notes, “that time flows like a river, or we move through time the way a ship sails on the sea.”
Skow doesn’t believe time is ever in motion like this. In the first place, he says, time should be regarded as a dimension of spacetime, as relativity theory holds — so it does not pass by us in some way, because spacetime doesn’t. Instead, time is part of the uniform larger fabric of the universe, not something moving around inside it.
http://news.mit.edu/2015/book-brad-skow-does-time-pass-0128
I can now understand what he was trying to tell me.
His view is theory specific to GR, which is fine, but the effect of energy density on the rate that clocks measure time isn't from GR. When I suggest time "simply" passes, I don't mean it to be anything physical, just conceptual, based on our recognition that there is a past, present, and future. The measurement of time though, in my view, is influenced by the physical energy density of the environment where the clock is situated. The higher the wave energy density gets, the slower clocks function physically, is what I was suggesting.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
Time flows like a river; it is a simile. Time happens (becoming, changes) in a certain interval (duration). The temporary change is the increasing of the existence of things (duration). Becoming is sensory, duration is intuitive and time measurement is intelligible.
One time as slowly as I can....
Change is real!
The measurement of change is subjective.
So, whether time is real or subjective depends on your definition of the word time.
If the word time is defined to mean change, it is real!
If the word time is defined, as a measurement of change it is subjective.
There can be no answer to the question in the OP, without a clear definition of exactly what the word "time" means.
The problem that seems to come up often in time discussions is clearly defining whether the discussion is about change or how change is measured.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
It makes sense. In another forum web site one person expressed the same idea.
The word time is a equivocal term.
But the concept of duality becoming-duration is univocal.
This duality is defined as the activity occurred between two sequential moments.
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But what are the two sequential moments based on ?
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
At the empirical level I believe time can be defined specifically. I should first mention this definition may not be compatible with the mathematics of QM or GR, in that regard I simply don’t know? However I’m reasonably certain it would hold up to any direct observation or experiment.
Time describes and measures the change of position of energy (the “energy” term being used in its broadest sense that includes all forms and matter). The fact that nothing can change position without moving some length makes the concept of space-time a simple axiom for this definition. Particularly when you realize that length can only physically be present as a function of motion; whether it is the motion of photons or some other energy relative to the length it cannot be physically experienced or observed without some motion, again this understanding makes the idea of space-time axiomatic
Most everyone would agree that in the broadest sense time represents change. Most physicists likely would understand physical (observable) change, requires energy changing position. Depending on the context we use the term, time is a description or measurement of that, i.e. the Earth’s rotation, or orbit around the sun, or the change in position of energy in some device like an atomic clock.
Summarizing, time is like any other descriptive or measurement term we use, such as mass, a way to reference to the properties of a real thing which is energy. However to be clear, just as mass is not an entity but a way to reference the property of an entity (a quantity of energy), time is the same (a change in position of energy).
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
IMO, time is an emergent property of change and measurement of duration.. As change from one state to another has a duration, this duration is identified and recorded as time. This is why we have different measurements of time. As all change is of different duration we have adopted time measurements, from nano seconds to centuries.
Even spacetime coordinates are fundamentally measurements of the geometry of space. But even here time emerges along with the dynamics of spatial change. As the universe itself is in a constant state of flux, time become purely dependent on change and the duration of that change.
IMHO, time does not exist as a separate plenum. It is a emergent dimension (4th) of dynamic space and cannot, needs not, exist separate from change. How can one measure time itself? It cannot be done, because time does not have measurable physical properties, apart from having emerged along with physical space.
I think this is correct, I've only taken it one step further in asking; what is the cause of change? On an empirical level physical change is the result of energy (all forms including matter) changing position (motion), therefore time as a reference of change, is a relative measurement and description of any energies motion. You can make the basic connection by looking at ways we measure time, Earths rotation (1 day), Earth's orbit around the sun (1 year), all clocks (including atomic clocks) measure time as an increment (piece) of motion. All of these things at the most fundamental level is an increment of energy changing position which we also refer to as a duration. A thought experiment, if every single particle that makes up your body stopped moving it would be fair to say you were frozen in time, the same is true of anything like the earth; what is actually happening? The energy (particles) that you are comprised of no longer can change (via motion), while everything else does.
Note: The definition of motion can be confusing being defined as a change in position per time; however when you look closely at what "per time" is you see it is a standard of measure no different than any such standard like 1 gram. We choose an arbitrary measurement of the phenomenon and other measures are made relative to that.
Time is the same, we choose a standard increment of motion like an Earth rotation, or the increment of a photon's movement emitted by the hyper-fine transition of a cesium atom, and they become the standard which all other measurements of the phenomenon become relative. What most people don't realize about any time standard is it only represents a ratio of length/(the change in length measured), i.e. x/s=t 300,000km/300,000km per second = 1 (second) = 50km/50km per second. This also ties in why space-time are inseparable, space only has relevance to energy changing position and any change in position requires space.
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Sure time emerged along with space [as we know them] at the BB, but that happened 13.7 billion years ago. That is a measure of time in my language.
Einstein presumed the Universe was static. If that were the case, would we have no time? Of course not.
The best that can be said is that the true nature of time aligns with the true nature of space, both are real as per the Sean Carroll video earlier in the piece, and whether it is fundamental or not appears to be the real question that needs to be solved.
My opinion, and this is where I differ slightly from Carroll, is that since space and time both emerged together [as we know them] at the BB, both are fundamental and everything else arises from that.
Further data and a QGT may show me as wrong though.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
The two perspectives of time are:
a) Spatial.
For this perspective time is the distance gone over at an uniform speed. Sometimes the units of time are used as a measurement of distance.
b) Flowing.
For this perspective time is the duration measured since a start moment set.
SPACE <------------------- TIME ----------- --------> DURATION
A priori ............................................................... ...... intuition
Newton and Kant ...................................................... Bergson and Sibilia
Physics ............................................................. ......... Philochrony
a) Spatial.
For this perspective time is the distance gone over at an uniform speed. Sometimes the units of time are used as a measurement of distance.
b) Flowing.
For this perspective time is the duration measured since a start moment set.
SPACE <------------------- TIME ----------- --------> DURATION
A priori ............................................................... ...... intuition
Newton and Kant ...................................................... Bergson and Sibilia
Physics ............................................................. ......... Philochrony
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Time is never real. It is measurement of duration of change and wholly dependend on that duration.
I suggest to modify the first itme on the list to:
1- BB (t=0) ---> INFLATIONARY EPOCH ---> SPACE ---> CHANGE ---> DURATION (of change) ---> TIME
If that sequence is applied, the rest is unnecessary.
And that is covered in 1-
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