admello

So while I know that my math knowledge of these issues is probably not up to speed with others here, I still cannot understand how time can be treated as like it is almost some sort of physical object, almost as though it has mass. I can kind of see how space can be treated that way, even though that is merely supposed to be a container for objects or a "space" here they live. But how is space-time treated as some sort of blanket or actual object with different axises and the like? There just seems to me to be a little bit of magic going on and a tremendous amount of assumptions or presumtions that might actually not be correct, even if the math says it is. Well as far as two objects occupying the same space at the same time goes, I thought that I remembered some QM theories that say this is actually possible, for as weird as it would sound, but maybe I am not recalling correctly. But even if I am correct, I don't know how they arrived at that conclusion. "the human construct was borne out of the observation of that order" I think I would agree with that. But my point is that past and future are actually treated as physical realities, rather than ideas for reality, that may or may not be accurate. And without a concept of the past, or memory, we could not perceive and create this order. And we also need a concept for future to create this order. But if everything ended two seconds from now, was our idea of the future or a tommorrow actually reality or was it simply an idea or expectation that we had? Is there really an over arching reality of "future" that can exist independent of our minds? You are suggesting that the future is a reality in of itself independent of our minds, and that we are merely organizing what is a reality outside of our preceptions. But if we posit a tommorow and the universe ended two seconds from now, was there really a reality of the future indepenent of our minds as you seem to be suggesting? I'm not going to even say that what I am suggesting is right, I just want to explore this as I think it is really interesting..

I'm not saying there are not separate objects. There can be separate objects without anybody perceiving them. The tree that falls in the woods did make a sound whether anybody heard it or not, in my opinion. I as merely pointing out that in reality, there is no delimiter between one moment and the next unless we create one. We do not have to create separate objects. I do not think that is a created concept, but merely a present moment observation. Ordered events can happen, and this reflects motion, which then refects change. But out mental comparison beteen our memories, what we are seeing right now at any given moment, and our expectation of a future creates this concept called time. By concept, I mean a mental construct. Math is a mental construct. It is almost always a correct one, but numbers are not real, they are a concept that hopes to reflect or represent reality. I know it's kind of weird and it took me a while to grasp this idea, Whether the idea is actually correct or not, it has to be grasped first in order to even attempt to ascertain whether it is correct or not and I found it to be very counter intuitive at first. Someone sees a photograph of a past event. And to them, that is proof that there is a past, and there is a past (in our minds). But that past event happened in the present moment at that time, and was only real when it was happening in the present moment. The remnants of that event exist only in our mind, but they are no longer real and were only real when they happened. Not to say that it is wrong for us to have a concept of the past, but the past can only exist in our mind via our concepts or mental constructs. Nothing can ever exist outside of our minds or mental constructs except things that are actually happening right now in the present. So when we look at a photograph, we make the relationship between that photograpgh and some memory we have or an idea of "past" that we have, and therefore it is a mental construct that creates this idea of past. But the only thing that is actually real and independent of our ideas or mental constructs, is the current physical state of that photography. Maybe it is getting more and more yellow. Maybe it has a tear in it. That's real, and independent of any concepts that we create or connect together. And later on, the state that we saw that photograph in is no longer real, and we store that past reality as an idea or memory but the only place it exists is in the mind because that current state no longer exists, and the present state of it is the only thing that is real or reality and independent of any ideas we create and store in our minds. And reality should be something that exists independent of our ideas or concepts for it. The tree does make a sound even if nobody hears it, but that sound only exists in reality when it happens, and after the sound is finished, it is no longer reality and can only exist in our minds or on a sound recorder, but it does not actually exist in reality independent of our perceptions. And when we play that sound back, the only thing that actually exists is the sound that the recorder is currently playing. We have to create a conncetion in our mind to relate that current sound to a past event, but that event does not exist, only the current event of a recorder making a sound.exists I can't be sure this is correct, I just found it to be a fascinating concept, and it took me a while to grasp because it is so counter intutive to what we have been taught, and yet it is actually so simple and seems to ring true to me,.And often, truth is actually quite simple, and we create complexities. As one author that I read said, sometimes we organized the world with our mental constructs so well, that we can no longer see it. It exists if we create an idea or mental construct of it's existence. But it was only real and independent of our concepts or mental constructs when it was actually happening. And to me, reality is something that exists independent of our mental constructs. It exists on it's own, independent of someone attaching concepts to it, and it can only exist when it is actually happening. So the idea of this concept I am proposing is that the only thing that is actually real or reality is what is actually happening right now, and the rest of it, past and future, exists as mere concepts of the mind. I didn't say that they weren't useful concepts, but they should be treated as what they really are, concepts for reality, but not reality itself. Both the future and the past can only actually exist, independent of our ideas or mental constructs, in the present moment. The past was only real when it was actually happening in the present moment that it happened in. And the future, which is really just a mental expectation that we create, can only come to fruition, and therefore actually exist, in the present moment. The rest of it are mere ideas of ours. Not to say they are necessarily faulty at all, but they are ideas, not reality. So this is where the idea comes from that the only thing that is real is the present moment which goes on and on and on and on....... There is an idea that mytics have. And by mystics, I mean people like Loa Tzu or others, not these fraud, modern day mystics. An example of a real, modern day mystic would be Jiddhu Krishnamurti. Real mytics are kind of like philosophers mixed with spiritual concepts in search of true reality.. They are not people who perform crazy ceremionies and the like, like most people think of when they hear that word. They maintain that if one was fully concentrating on what is actually happening right before them right now, and attaches no ideas of past or future, but instead the mind is 100% focused on what is actually happening, rather than ideas of past and future sharing their focus, then time disappears. Very difficult to grasp because it is very abstract and counter intuitive. AndI don't think that anybody can have their minds 100% in the present moment, it is just an idea, but the idea says that if one could actually do this and keep doing it, they would be living in what is called the "eternal moment". When religions speaking of eternity life, they are using the wrong word. They should be saying everlasting life because that is what they really mean. Everlasting is in time, and is time purduring forever. But it has a beginning and therefore a past and it has a future which never ends. But eternal means timeless no time. Something outside of time itself. We can conceive of something that has no end, but we cannot conceive of something that has no beginning, since everything that exists must have a beginning or prior cause or origin. But eternal is outside of the mind's ability to conceptualize. So while this is all admittedly very weird, I am merely explaining what they mean by the eternal moment, and how they could arrive at this idea or conclusion. I can't say that I necessarily sign on to this, I am actually a very logical and rational person, but I find it to be a very interesting or even fascinating concept that never even occurred to me before I was introduced to it. About Math. I know that the math says that these ideas I am proposing are wrong. And I do believe that math can't be wrong. Math is just math. But, if the starting point of the math is faulty, the following math will work just fine, because it's just math doing it's thing. But, if the starting assumption or beginning of the equation was wrong right from the start, the math wiill work, but ultimately could lead us to conclusions that aren't really true. And it would not be the math's fault, it would be our usage of it that would be to blame. Or the slower the motion becomes. But I think it is the opposite, and the faster the motion becomes. But I think we are still talking about what is actually motion and time is just a concept that we created to measure that motion.

Secondly, I don't understand what you can hope to learn from a totally non-physical set up. You might as well ask, "What if time were blue?" You cannot "freeze" everything. For good physical reasons, absolute zero cannot be achieved. However, note that the definition of the second refers to measurements being made under idealised conditions of zero temperature and no movement. (The real-world measurements are adjusted for the non-ideal conditions.) But the point is that the measurement of time is continues even under you not-even-hypothetical conditions. In which case, how did the universe evolve to its present state during the 13.7 billion years before we were here to invent time? Yes, but this is a science forum so that is hardly relevant. So ordered events did not happen without this mental construct? I think that I have to use the quote functions here properly, as they are not normally what I am used to,.But i am a softare developer, so I think I will figure it out correctly the next time that I am here. I was only asked to come here by someone else after reading my initial post, so I didn't expect to participate here heavily and basically expected to be laughed at right away, which is no problem at all, but I just wanted to see the reactions.

Well if this is true, then let us suppose that everything in the universe had no motion, and essentially froze, even all matter within our mind so that we could not perceive time, how could time still exist? The earth turns at a certain rate to reflect the passing of a day. The hands of a watch circle at a certain speed to represent hours. It all seems to be related to motion of some sort. I know the math may say otherwise, but math itself is nothing more than a mental construct, and numbers are not actually real, they are only representative of things that we believe to be real. There really is no such thing as the number "2", but we use these things so much that they become actual reality to us, rather than the mere concepts that they really are. And in regard to time and math, we cut time up when it DOES exist, when there is change, which really translated into motion of some sort. Change in an object is created by cells changing and things within those cell change based on movement within them. And we can take that down into the Qurantum level, if we need to go there, but there alway seems to be movement of some ort, before change can happen, and there always seems to be change of some sort before time can happen and/or be measured. And we cut time up into minutes, second, nanoseconds etc.....But are these things actually real or are they just useful concepts for us to organize things? What is the actual delimiter beteen one moment and the next? There actually is none until we create an arbitrary delimiter. And if there is no actual delimiter in reality, then things get really weird and perhaps time becomes something that is actually singular. It could still be said to be directional, and I do not agree as of yet that it is multi directional, but at the same time it would be singular as well and it would actually be some sort of seamless motion ON a singular object, that moves seamlessly like water flow, but again, I think it is still in one direction. It would seem to me that no matter what the math says, one needs to be able to perceive a past, compare it to the present, and postulate a future before time could actually exist. So no matter what the math says, time seems to me to merely be a mental construct, just like math itself is. Numbers can work, but that does not always mean that they truly reflect reality, they are "hopefully" only an accurate, conceptual "representation" of reality. There are concepts of mystics that say that the past and future actually do not exist in reality and are only a mental construct of ours. Now, it may be a useful and often accurate one, and sometimes, as we know, it is not even accurate (failed expectations, faulty memories....), but it is still a concept or mental construct, not actual reality. The past is a memory of the mind. The future is an expectation of the mind. But both are merely mental constructs that exist only in our mind and not in reality. The concept says that there is only the present moment in reality that goes on and on and on.....and does so seamlessly like water flow. When the future comes to fruition, it can only possibly do so in the present moment, and when it does, there is a new concept of the future that we create which also can only become real in the present moment. As far as the past, one might say that we have photos, videos and gravestones that prove that the past is a real thing. But actually, the only thing that is real is the current physical state of those things, but we add our concept of a connection to whatever object we are talking about to CREATE the past.

Hi folks, I'm new here, and I'm not a physicist and I simply have to trust their math, even though it arrives at some strange conclusions. This is a general curiouisity and discussion I'd like to bring up. My science is poor relative to those here, but maybe my creative thought is at least intriguing and some might like to entertain an idea that I have. I was watching a documentary where the term "before time" was used (referring to pre big bang), and of course I thought "how is that possible?". If you have to use the word "before" to describe anything, then ultimately it still involves time and to say "before time" is a contradictory statement because it still sets up a "before" and "after". So the word "before",actually can never be accurate when discussing this particular idea. So to truly be accurate, one needs to reference a concept that is neither before or after when speaking of pre big bang. At first, I supposed one must step out of time itself to be able to do this. Then, I remembered an older idea of time that I always had. I don't look at time like Einstien does (probably from my lack of knowledge) or if I actually do, I wouldn't know it. Rather than it actually being a plane, I think of time stricty as a measurement for movement. There's only movement, and then time as a conceptual way to measure movement. I know that all the math will tell me I'm wrong, but imagine this. Imagine if every single thing in existence, even down to the most minute element were frozen or did not move. If so, how could there be time? Obviously no days, no watching the clock move, not even any thoughts, if you believe that these can't happen without movement in the brain (chemicals....) but even at a quantum level, no movement and therefore no state changes. So if movement is required for state changes, and therefore nothing is changing it's state, I can't see how there could be time. So while I hear some very abstract explanations for how there could be something as "before time", none of them completely settle well with me and they seem to have logical holes that brings me right back to the chicken and egg conundrum. But, if the idea above is applied to the problem, then we could very easily explain a lack of time in pre big bang as simply a lack of movement, and it seems as though the paradox gets easily solved. The problem is that this must violate all of the math that says time is a plane, but logically, it seems to work really easily. So I'm trying to figure out why this simple idea does not or might not work and I thought I would ask others who are more knowledgeable of physics than I am.. Thanks