Time doesn't exist...?

[Abid]

I think time existed first even before the universe came into existence not the other way around or maybe time has no starting or ending. The universe may collapse one day (big crunch) but i think time will always exist even after the universe has gone out of existence.

 

:(

[watcher]

Its important to recognize there must be a storage of events to manifest time. That is, some form of mental awareness with the capability of memory, in order for time to be realized.

 

what ever it is, it can't be in time, instead time is in it.

 

At certain levels of reality, namely the very very small, time is not a meaningful dimension to the function and relationships that do exist at those levels.

 

time is a classical phenomena. there is no classical motion inside the very small. the very very small has no internal structure other than the nonlocal spin. in nonlocality realms, either time (as we know it) doesn't exists or it's from whence time originates.

 

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[watcher]

I think time existed first even before the universe came into existence not the other way around or maybe time has no starting or ending.

 

but the perception of time fully depends on the beginnings and endings of things. how can it exists on its own? in what form it would be?

 

The universe may collapse one day (big crunch) but i think time will always exist even after the universe has gone out of existence.

 

 

whether it is the period of the universe big bang and big crunch spans billions of years or the zitterbewegung of an electron in microseconds, time becomes perceptible with the appearance and disappearance of things. from the void or the vacuum whence they came, time is a meaningless concept. it doesn't exist there as we know it.

 

otoh, in a steady state universe , we must accept that the universe fundamental elements has no beginning and end (timeless/eternal), thus time can also be viewed as a phenomenon of perception. a counting of the changing of forms.

[Southtown]

Perception of the multi-faceted nature of things...

[lemit]

I just thought of something that has me curious but confused. Just as a mental exercise, I started thinking that maybe time is to movement as distance is to space. Instead of helping me figure out what time is, that started me wondering what distance is. Any ideas?

[sanctus]

Lemit, if I remember right there is a thing called generating function (or was it generators?) in group-theory. When applying it to mechanics one finds that momentum is the generator of translations in space and Energy the generator of time translations.

This makes sense intuitively, without momentum something doesn't move and without energy something doesn't evolve in time...

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[watcher]

Perception of the multi-faceted nature of things...

 

more like to me a multi-faceted perception of the unified nature of things.

[lemit]

Lemit, if I remember right there is a thing called generating function (or was it generators?) in group-theory. When applying it to mechanics one finds that momentum is the generator of translations in space and Energy the generator of time translations.

This makes sense intuitively, without momentum something doesn't move and without energy something doesn't evolve in time...

 

Hope this helps a bit.

 

Thanks, Sanctus. That seems to answer not only my question but the original question in a fairly definitive way. So much space has been used around here on that original question that I'm amazed the answer is so simple. I hope others will accept that answer too, but I kind of doubt it.

[Idiot]

I don't know how to do all those referencing earlier posts thingys, but never the less this argument is of great interest to me. From what I can deduce in my own little brain, time must exist in order for for anything to exist. We know that Plank length is the smallest measure of space, and, if we assume that the universe , before or at the big bang, was rolled up into an infinitely dense singularity like point. A point at which all known laws break down and cease to exist (including time, and of course space time). Then how can this infinite point change (which requires time ) from wherever it was, sitting in no space and without time or energy, to the first instant of the big bang perhaps to the first plank dimension?

[lemit]

Idiot,

 

I missed my opportunity with your first post, but welcome to Hypography! I think you'll find you aren't alone, if you catch my drift.

 

Actually, I'm very jealous of your name. If I'd been smart enough to think of it, it wouldn't have been available for you. So I think that gives me bragging rights on idiocy.

 

I'm forming the opinion that in this thread and the many like it around here we're confabulating things with qualities of things; that we shouldn't try to identify time or distance as things. In other words, we are trying to ascribe applish qualities to orangeness. Or am I just demonstrating that quality you used to name yourself?

[Idiot]

I'm forming the opinion that in this thread and the many like it around here we're confabulating things with qualities of things; that we shouldn't try to identify time or distance as things. In other words, we are trying to ascribe applish qualities to orangeness. Or am I just demonstrating that quality you used to name yourself?

 

Hi Lemit,

 

Thanks for the kind welcome.;) Yeah, I like the handle too! It was just the first thing that came to mind that I thought apt for my status as a newby to this kind of thing. sorry for being tardy in replying, there's always something better to do than 'two finger peck' at a computer these days. :eek_big: To answer your post, I'm not sure that there is such a problem with comparing the qualities of things with the things themselves, as I feel they are both real and therefore measurable. Einstein locked time and space together in spacetime then proceeded to (I beleive) overlook the importance of time as a seperate entity even though it keeps popping up all over the place in relativity theory. Like when you have acceleration or mass you affect time locally and independently (or relatively). Now I know I'm getting way in over my head here, but too late to climb out now! What I keep on coming back to, is that in order for the universe to have come into existence in the first instance, time must have "pre existed" because without time, nothing can happen. No electron can orbit its neucleus, no photon can moove anywhere at any speed (kilometers per what?), no nothing into something because there is a step, a change, no matter how small, and that requires some tiny measure of time. Even time itself cannot come into existence without itself already existing!:) OK now my head has exploded I think I need a couple of beers and a good lie down:eek2:

[TheBigDog]

If time doesn't exist then how do we all understand the same sequence and interval to the posts in this thread?

 

WEEEEE!!!!!

[Southtown]

If time doesn't exist then how do we all understand the same sequence and interval to the posts in this thread?

 

WEEEEE!!!!!

How do you know that we do? :rolleyes:

 

Simultaneity is unity beyond reason.

[coberst]

Examples of abstract concepts (I use concept and idea interchangeable): justice, liberty, causality, soul, god, freedom, time, theory, etc. We often reify abstract ideas, i.e. we make them into objects.

[Lover of Wisdom]

Hi everyone I am new to the forums, but from what I see this place looks really great. However, I feel very ignorant, as I have just completed High School... I'm not sure if I have the knowledge or understanding all of you have ha ha, but I will do my best.

 

Spacetime must exist, however, when we conceptualize time we measure it. I am not arguing the existence of time, I am trying to understand the way we understand it. It is simply our frame of reference, or our three-dimensional perception which creates the view in which time is happening. To fully understand time one would have to be able to see the fourth dimension objectively. Because we live in a three dimensional reality the only way we can conceptualize spacetime is to create points of reference, or contrast with points in three-dimensional space. Through this contrast we can view events or change in velocity of objects. However, we aren't actually existing with time, but in a 'point' of time - we are contrasting two points in the third dimension from our understanding of the fourth. To understand time make it a point and it would encompass all that is, will, and was.

 

Originally Posted by TheBigDog View Post

If time doesn't exist then how do we all understand the same sequence and interval to the posts in this thread?

 

WEEEEE!!!!!

 

How can you know that each individual is percieving the time in the very way you are. Have we not, instead, collectively accepted some form of contrast which we have accepted as passage of time?

[Little Bang]

I can only give you my own interpretation of what the knowledge I have suggests to me. If there was a Big Bang, and all the current data points to one, then the BB must have had a cause. Something must have happened to turn energy equal to that of our entire Universe into matter and an equal amount of anti-matter. After the matter anti-matter annihilations about one percent of the matter survived to create the stars we see today. If you want to know how some matter survived we can discuss that later.

So from where could all this energy come? Suppose there could be a being trillions and trillions of times larger than our Universe and this being has a watch on his/her arm. The watch has an hour, minute and second hand. This being can see our Universe even though it is extremely tiny compared to him/her. If this being is trying to time how long our Universe will live he would find that our Universe was born and died in a millionth of one of his seconds. I think that a high energy collision between two charged particles in our Universe creates a tiny Universe just like the situation I describe above and that there are an infinite number of Universes smaller than ours and an infinite number larger. The collision of two charged particles are analogous to two planets with large atmospheres colliding. The electric field surrounding a charged particle is akin to the atmosphere of a planet. At the point of collision a high density electric field is formed that could produce one of the tiny Universes that I described. The relationship of time to my post is to show that time is a commodity that can move close to zero but never reach it or it can run infinitely fast and it's measurement is based on the perspective of the observer.

[jedaisoul]

I'm forming the opinion that in this thread and the many like it around here we're confabulating things with qualities of things; that we shouldn't try to identify time or distance as things. In other words, we are trying to ascribe applish qualities to orangeness.

You are right in that time does not have to exist as a dimension for time intervals to exist. Time is an arbitrary measure of change. Material entities objectively exist. They have physical dimensions and relationships to other material objects. And the objects, and their relationships, change. From that we abstract the concepts of time, space, momentum, inertia etc... These are just concepts that describe aspects of reality.