Is time a real thing or just a meter?

[Strange]

But a dimension is energy. Dimensions are energy fields. But anyway...

 

 

Er, no. That is not what "dimension" means.

 

"the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it.^[1][2] Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it – for example, the point at 5 on a number line. A surface such as a plane or the surface of a cylinder or sphere has a dimension of two because two coordinates are needed to specify a point on it – for example, both a latitude and longitude are required to locate a point on the surface of a sphere. The inside of a cube, a cylinder or a sphere is three-dimensional because three coordinates are needed to locate a point within these spaces."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension

 

Most people learn this at school.

 

 

 

Let’s take language. It’s through the very linear human language that sequences are possible. It allows us to arrange events and actions sequentially. With that sequential language, present moments become surrounded by past moments and future moments. So it’s a human fabrication. Think about all the tenses we use: past, present and future. So time exists only in consciousness, it's a function of language, motion, where motion and language create your perception of time.

 

Or maybe language (and human thought) just reflects the reality around us.

[zbigniew.modrzejewski]

If a ticking clock "measures" time, does that imply that time passes?

If the flow of time were making the clock move, like above,

then I would agree that clock really measures the velocity of time flow,

or empirically detects its physical existence.

However, the physical reason that clocks move (tick) is not that

some physical time flows through them, so clocks neither detect

nor measure anything other than themselves,

I am afraid ....

WHAT IS THE REASON THAT CLOCKS STOP ?

CLOCKS ONLY STOP MEASURING TIME, WHEN TIME STOPS !!!

What if time is only an illusion? What if it doesn't actually exist? Palle Yourgrau, a Brandeis professor of philosophy, explains that Einstein's general theory of relativity may allow for this possibility. It was first realized by the great logician Kurt Godel in a typically brief paper written for a Festschrift to honor his friend and Princeton neighbor Einstein. Godel is best known for his incompleteness theorem, one of the most important theorems in mathematical logic since Euclid. Palle Yourgrau writes that Godel's paper was almost universally ignored, and he claims that since the logician's death, philosophers have gone out of their way to try to denigrate his work in fields other than logic. In 1942, the logician Kurt Godel suffered a major episode of depression that required a stay at a mental hospital. Upon his release, Albert Einstein, his colleague at the Institute for Advanced Studies, took Godel under his wing and, to cheer him up, gave him "relativity lessons." The two became close friends; they walked to and from their offices at the Institute every day, exchanging ideas about science, philosophy, politics and the lost world of German science in which both men had grown up. By 1949, Godel had produced a remarkable proof: In any universe described by the Theory of Relativity, time cannot exist. Einstein endorsed this result – reluctantly, since it decisively overthrew the classical world-view to which he was committed. But he could find no way to refute it, and in the half-century since then, neither has anyone else. Even more remarkable than this stunning discovery by two of the greatest intellects of all time, however, was what happened afterward: nothing. Cosmologists have proceeded with their work as if time were the linear phenomenon familiar to Newton or Galileo (with some allowances for relativistic distortion); philosophers have refused to recognize Godel as an important philosopher of time. While arguing that these failures constitute major scandals of modern intellectual history, Palle Yourgrau also offers a mitigating explanation. Godel's cosmological findings, he says, are so advanced as to be beyond the ability of modern science to deal with them. A World without Time is a sweeping, ambitious book, and yet poignant and intimate – it tells the story of two magnificent minds put on the shelf by the scientific fashions of their day, and attempts to rescue from undeserved obscurity the brilliant work they did together.

[Strange]

 

However, the physical reason that clocks move (tick) is not that

some physical time flows through them

 

 

No one says that is what happens. It is a straw man fallacy.

 

Reported for copyright infringement.

[Blueyedlion]

 

 

Er, no. That is not what "dimension" means.

 

"the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it.^[1][2] Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it – for example, the point at 5 on a number line. A surface such as a plane or the surface of a cylinder or sphere has a dimension of two because two coordinates are needed to specify a point on it – for example, both a latitude and longitude are required to locate a point on the surface of a sphere. The inside of a cube, a cylinder or a sphere is three-dimensional because three coordinates are needed to locate a point within these spaces."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension

 

Most people learn this at school.

Hold on there, where is the point by point coordinate in the mind? In emotions? These are all non-physical properties. When you refer to dimensions as points of space, you're implying everything is physical in nature, but since it's not, that then implies a point in space does not properly describe reality as is. Dimensions need to encompass things that aren't measurable from one moment to the next.

 

For example, think of time, where is the point by point coordinate where you were say, walking 5 minutes to where you are now? You may say well very simply 'i drew a line on the ground from where i was then until now' i would say back, but you as you are now arent there now 5 minutes ago to experience the drawing of the line, you can only see the past effect of it which gives you the indication that it happened.

 

So what im saying, is that we can 'measure' physical things but where was the mind in this drawing of its own line from the past? You might say memory, but memory is not the actual experience, its a new creation trying to recreate or 'trace' what has seemed to have happened. The mind exists monument to moment, so you as the conscious observer can not experience your point to point coordinate of how your mind was any further in the past or future, than your mind is reading this right now. What does that tell you?

 

Same thing with emotions, you cant recreate a feeling, you can create a new feeling that may appear similar, but it wont be the same one. Emotionally we cant recreate what was felt in the past, we can only create new emotions in the futile attempt of trying to recreate what was felt. Where are the mathematical dimensions there?

 

 

 

Or maybe language (and human thought) just reflects the reality around us.

 

Could be, but you have to have an observer for there to be an experience of reality. Which implies the experiencer is creating the reality for nothing can happen unto itself without an act upon it. For there to be an action there must be participants, and so the reality can only happen within those that are experiencing those actions, for it is only those participating that are there to act for the reality to be played out.

 

We cant reflect what isnt happening already to us. If it's happening outside of us, then we are not participating are we? What you are participating in right now, is a continuous now moment, that's all we can experience. So how can reality be passed and future if we cant experience the involvement of them?

Edited November 14, 2016 by Blueyedlion

[Klaynos]

If a ticking clock "measures" time, does that imply that time passes?

If the flow of time were making the clock move, like above,

then I would agree that clock really measures the velocity of time flow,

or empirically detects its physical existence.

However, the physical reason that clocks move (tick) is not that

some physical time flows through them, so clocks neither detect

nor measure anything other than themselves,

I am afraid ....

WHAT IS THE REASON THAT CLOCKS STOP ?

CLOCKS ONLY STOP MEASURING TIME, WHEN TIME STOPS !!!

 

The problem with this argument is that it can apply to pretty much every measurement technique that we have. Is space real? Is frequency real? Is intensity really? Etc... At some point you need to use a definition of real that makes sense.

 

You've used physical again. Which given your previous definition time is trivially physical. Whether whatever you think is flowing is physical I dont think so. But you're using some unusual visualisation of how time works that doesn't seem consistent with science.

[Strange]

Hold on there, where is the point by point coordinate in the mind? In emotions? These are all non-physical properties. When you refer to dimensions as points of space, you're implying everything is physical in nature, but since it's not, that then implies a point in space does not properly describe reality as is.

 

 

I'm not doing any such thing. I am simply explaining what the word "dimension" means, and that it is not an "energy field".

 

The rest of your post is pretty incoherent and doesn't seem very relevant to the topic.

[Randolpin]

I like the idea that time seems to flow because clocks illustrates it through successive tick tacks.But if we eliminate clocks, did time really flows? I think the best definition of the observation of changing world is not by concluding that time flows but instead by looking the universe change because "MATTER CHANGES" not "TIME FLOWS".The use of the phrase "TIME FLOWS" is still okay because it is convenient.

[Tim88]

Time is what clocks measure and that's all physicists say, and that is sufficient. Why don't people agonise over the ontology of length?

 

That's not what my physics textbooks say; moreover an operational tautology can hardly be "sufficient" but can be helpful for making the concept concrete. Do you say that length is "what a ruler measures", or that temperature is "what a thermometer measures"? Time is a measure of the relative progress (or "speed") of physical processes, and indeed we use clocks for precise comparisons of time, just as we use rulers for precise comparisons of length.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Tim88

[StringJunky]

 

Do you say that length is "what a ruler measures", or that temperature is "what a thermometer measures"? Time is a measure of the relative progress (or "speed") of physical processes, and indeed we use clocks for precise comparisons of time, just as we use rulers for precise comparisons of length.

No, because people don't ask that question and yet they think time is somehow different. It's a parameter; no more, no less.

 

So, time is not happening when there is no process?

Edited November 14, 2016 by StringJunky

[Strange]

Time is a measure of the relative progress (or "speed") of physical processes

 

 

Is it? How does that work for solutions to the Einstein Field Equations such as the Milne model, where there is no matter and energy and hence no "physical processes"?

 

We can use change to measure time, but there doesn't have to be change for time to exist.

[Randolpin]

Time as an illusion is justified in quantum mechanics.Since quantum mechanics has the characteristic of being uncertain due to uncertainty principle we can conclude that time in Q.M. is not present cause it is uncertain neither past, present nor future.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Randolpin

[Klaynos]

Time as an illusion is justified in quantum mechanics.Since quantum mechanics has the characteristic of being uncertain due to uncertainty principle we can conclude that time in Q.M. is not present cause it is uncertain neither past, present nor future.

I think that's not a terribly accurate description of time in qm.

 

But if we assume you're telling about tube appearing in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle then the same can said for space.

 

More generally on uncertainty, every measurement has an associated uncertainty. Is everything an illusion?

[Randolpin]

space-time or more accurately, space-matter- time is only an illusion.We define reality as we measure it.Like in magic, we observe and measure what is being presented not the mechanisms behind that magic.

[Strange]

space-time or more accurately, space-matter- time is only an illusion.We define reality as we measure it.Like in magic, we observe and measure what is being presented not the mechanisms behind that magic.

 

 

So is length an illusion as well?

 

As you now appear to be discussing g the nature of "reality" (whatever that is, and whether it even exists) this definitely belongs in Philosophy, not Physics.

 

(Can I also suggest that, as this is a science site, you try and provide a little more support for your case, rather than just repeating your personal belief over and over.)

Edited November 14, 2016 by Strange

[Klaynos]

space-time or more accurately, space-matter- time is only an illusion.We define reality as we measure it.Like in magic, we observe and measure what is being presented not the mechanisms behind that magic.

This is philosophy. You posted in physics. I'd suggest looking at the other threads on this in philosophy. Don't expect any firm answers either.

[swansont]

 

That's not what my physics textbooks say; moreover an operational tautology can hardly be "sufficient" but can be helpful for making the concept concrete. Do you say that length is "what a ruler measures", or that temperature is "what a thermometer measures"? Time is a measure of the relative progress (or "speed") of physical processes, and indeed we use clocks for precise comparisons of time, just as we use rulers for precise comparisons of length.

 

 

Time seems to befuddle people more than length, which is something that is easy to visualize, so there is generally much less discussion of what length is. But the thread's OP did not ask what time is, it asked if it was a real thing or a meter.

[Randolpin]

As we base in q.m., reality is uncertain before we measure it.There is no certainty of reality unless measurement is applied.It is like math.The answer #1 could be the result of either:

 

1*1

1+1

1/1

 

depending on what operation you prefer

 

This is the act of measuring the reality of 1.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Randolpin

[Klaynos]

As we base in q.m., reality is uncertain before we measure it.There is no certainty of reality unless measurement is applied.It is like math.The answer #1 could be the result of either:

 

1*1

1+1

1/1

 

depending on what operation you prefer

 

This is the act of measuring the reality of 1.

I'm sorry this doesn't seem to make sense. Can you try again?

[swansont]

 

WHAT IS THE REASON THAT CLOCKS STOP ?

CLOCKS ONLY STOP MEASURING TIME, WHEN TIME STOPS !!!

 

 

Clocks stop for a multitude of reasons. That does not mean that time has stopped.

 

Gonna go with "deliberately obtuse" here. Please stop.

[Randolpin]

So as far as q.m. is concern and since q.m. is real then reality is an illusion.Q.M. is like a magician.We are the viewers as we measure the uncertainty of q.m.We don't know the hidden mechanism why q.m. work that way or how q.m. perform "uncertainty principle" etc. magic.

[Klaynos]

So as far as q.m. is concern and since q.m. is real then reality is an illusion.Q.M. is like a magician.We are the viewers as we measure the uncertainty of q.m.We don't know the hidden mechanism why q.m. work that way or how q.m. perform "uncertainty principle" etc. magic.

This is a philosophical discussion. Qm works as a good mathematical model for parts of the universe (its domain of applicability). The same can be said for classical mechanics etc...

[Randolpin]

sorry if I act philosophically, cause I can' t find a good answer scientifically.

[studiot]

As we base in q.m., reality is uncertain before we measure it.There is no certainty of reality unless measurement is applied.It is like math.The answer #1 could be the result of either:

 

1*1

1+1

1/1

 

depending on what operation you prefer

 

This is the act of measuring the reality of 1.

 

sorry if I act philosophically, cause I can' t find a good answer scientifically.

 

No-one is complaining about philosophy, just asking you to use the philosophy section of ScienceForums for philosophy.

 

Is that unreasonable?

 

If you want to convert this thread to philosophy, ask the moderators (nicely) to move it for you.

You might be surprised how helpful they can be.

 

 

As to your statement above I think you are falling into the trap of using words in too narrow a manner.

 

Most definitely there are circumstance you do not need to measure to create certainty.

 

For instance, in retirement, I have moved from a large house with an orchard to a small property with a single apple tree in the back garden.

 

I do not need a measurement to tell me that I do not need a larger basket than I needed in the old house to accommodate this year's crop.

 

That is reality.

 

Mathematically too , there is more to 'certainty' than you allow.

 

Do you know the three possible meanings of the mathematical statement

 

The probability of event A is 1?

[Randolpin]

No-one is complaining about philosophy, just asking you to use the philosophy section of ScienceForums for philosophy.

 

Is that unreasonable?

 

If you want to convert this thread to philosophy, ask the moderators (nicely) to move it for you.

You might be surprised how helpful they can be.

 

 

As to your statement above I think you are falling into the trap of using words in too narrow a manner.

 

Most definitely there are circumstance you do not need to measure to create certainty.

 

For instance, in retirement, I have moved from a large house with an orchard to a small property with a single apple tree in the back garden.

 

I do not need a measurement to tell me that I do not need a larger basket than I needed in the old house to accommodate this year's crop.

 

That is reality.

 

Mathematically too , there is more to 'certainty' than you allow.

 

Do you know the three possible meanings of the mathematical statement

 

The probability of event A is 1?

 

I respect you, as we observe the observable reality in our everyday living, I just want to tell you that this just the result of quantum decoherence.Reality is uncertain if we base it in Copenhagen interpretation.By the way, I'm just following the established facts.

[studiot]

I respect you, as we observe the observable reality in our everyday living, I just want to tell you that this just the result of quantum decoherence.Reality is uncertain if we base it in Copenhagen interpretation.By the way, I'm just following the established facts.

 

Nothing you have said here in any way affects or even addresses my points in post 98.

 

Nor have you answered my question.

Edited November 14, 2016 by studiot