Is Time An Illusion?

[bassist_13]

I am a 16 year old student from Admiral Lord Nelson School currently studying AS Publicunderstanding Science. I have chosen to do a peice of coursework on the question; "Is Time An Illusion?"

I am posting on this forum to gain as many people's opinions as possible. I would be grateful if you could reply to this stating what you believe time to really be and if possible any evidance for this.

 

To answer "Is Time An Illusion?" first of all you first need to know what an illusion is.

According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion; “An illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people”

[YT2095]

not an Illusion as such, but rather Subjective.

[bassist_13]

So you believe that time exsists inside your head and so therefore does not really exsist in real life. So, why do we have this concept of time in our head?

[iNow]

Turn on your speakers and click here (C.Sagan) --> http://media.pbs.org/ramgen/wgbh/nova/time/sagan01.rm

 

 

There was a special on the PBS (in US) program called NOVA, from which I borrowed the link/quote above. You might explore the website speicific to that program a bit.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/

 

 

I'm of the frame of mind that it's always the present, no matter where or when you are, it's right now. An "infinite now" as it were.

 

 

One immediate issue I see with your current approach, despite it's inherently interesting and fascinating subject matter, is that in order to posit that time is an illusion, you will need to first define what an illusion is. That is not likely an easy task, but you may have better luck than I did with this.

 

I wish you the best of luck on your coursework. Maybe you'll be so kind as to come back and let us all know what you decided upon and how it turned out.

[bassist_13]

Thank you for the advise.

 

According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion; “An illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people”

 

Your opinion/point of view on time is a very interesting one that I have noted because I have not heard any one with the same view on time before!

If there is an "infinite now" does that mean that you belive that there is a past or future, or is everything now and in the present?

[YT2095]

So you believe that time exsists inside your head and so therefore does not really exsist in real life. So, why do we have this consept of time in our head?

 

 

erm.... NO:confused: where did I say that?

 

I said it`s Subjective.

 

ie/ My experience of time is different to yours, in other words it`s Relative to Me, just as yours is relative to You and so forth...

[iNow]

Your opinion/point of view on time is a very interesting one that I have noted because I have not heard any one with the same view on time before!

If there is an "infinite now" does that mean that you belive that there is a past or future, or is everything now and in the present?

 

I must admit, I struggle putting my thoughts into words. However, there are a past and a future, but they are both themselves contained in/by the present.

 

When you think of the past, you do so in the present.

When you arrive at the future, you are still in the present.

 

This is all just my personal opinion. It's more metaphysical than anything else, and I'd need a coupla glasses of red wine and a nice cigar in order to continue thought surfing on this speculative wave.

[bassist_13]

Now I understand. I misunderstood what you ment by Subjective.

So everyone experiences time in a different way?

 

I also struggle putting thoughts into words.

 

So, you are saying that there is a past and future?

So does this mean time exsists?

[YT2095]

not in a different WAY, just differently to each other (and sometimes even to ourselves).

 

ie/ If I`m busy in the lab and enjoying the work, time goes by Very quickly! but if I`m waiting for the clock to turn 5pm on a friday night because I have a good plan for the weekend, then time goes by very slowly.

[bassist_13]

So, we see time differently to each other but experience it in the same way?

 

ie/ If I`m busy in the lab and enjoying the work, time goes by Very quickly! but if I`m waiting for the clock to turn 5pm on a friday night because I have a good plan for the weekend, then time goes by very slowly.

 

Does this mean that time is perspective that changes speeds depending on what you are doing or if you are pre-occupied?

[YT2095]

our Perception of it changes yes

[bassist_13]

Thank you for your point of view!

Your opinion is greatly appricitaed and will help me with my coursework.

[iNow]

Remember, time is a concept that is profoundly resistant to simple definition.

 

 

Do yourself a favor and be very clear about the point you wish to make with your presentation. Keep it simple, and try to remain on topic. Make sure you have your head fully wrapped around what you wish to say before you begin.

 

 

Are you talking about time itself? Are you talking about perception? Are you talking about existence? Are you talking about clocks? Are you talking about consciousness? Are you talking about something you don't really understand?

 

 

Again, best of luck.

[bassist_13]

Thank you for the advise, I shall keep that in mind when I try to conclude all of the information I have gathered.

[swansont]

Since this is posted in "relativity" I'll say that no, time is not an illusion. It can be measured. But there is no absolute time, and how it is perceived depends on the situation. Some aspects of time passing slow or fast to an individua might be considered an illusion.

[Daecon]

It changes relative to your speed, so the same amount of time would be measured at a different length depending on how close to the speed of light you were going.

 

But apparently, the speed of light never seems to change no matter how fast you go, so you can't even use it as a baseline to do your relative time measurements against.

 

So I would say that while time itself is real (as demonstrated by entropy) our perception of it is the illusion.

[D H]

That time is an illusion is a new Internet meme spurred in part by a very recent (Jan 19, 2008) article in New Scientist on the work of physicists Carlo Rovelli and Alain Connes on the thermal time hypothesis. Unfortunately, New Scientist has lately fallen to hawking a lot of pseudoscience and is prone to oversimplification, exaggeration, and sensationalism. I think this is most certainly the case here.

 

The underlying concept of the thermal time hypothesis is that time is not fundamental but is rather an emergent thermodynamic property, much like temperature and pressure. Based on this unproven conjecture, some have made the untenable jump to claiming that time is an illusion.

 

For the sake of argument, suppose time is not a fundamental property. That does not mean time is an illusion any more than is temperature. A hot pan will still burn you, and jumping into the Arctic for a nude swim remains a very stupid idea even though temperature is just an emergent property rather than a fundamental property of physics.

 

A fundamental property is merely something that remains axiomatic. Time and distance are axiomatic concepts in physics today. Maybe they won't be in the future after having found some new physics in which time and distance are derived from some deeper concept. That discovery will not make time and distance illusionary any more than statistical mechanics and thermodynamics make the concept of temperature illusionary.

[Edtharan]

I don't think that "Time" is an illusion, but our perceptions of it might be.

 

There might not be a flow of time, but there is some seperation of events that occur at the same location, this seperation is what is called "Time". Most people think of time as a serise of events, but really, if there was no gap between those events, then they would all occur at the same Time. It is the "Gap", not the events that is important. The events just allow us to break up a larger gap into smaller gaps.

 

However, as it is events (the firing of neurons) that give us our perceptions, this means that our perceptions of Time tend to be "distorted" by this. So our Perception of Time might be an illusion, but Time itself is not.

[gcol]

Time may well be an illusion (and we all may be just dreaming).

But until a new Einstein comes along, it will have to do.

 

I mean no time, nothing happening?, How inconveniently tedious and plain boring. Not to mention the expense of tearing up all those standard physics textbooks.

 

To paraphrase a well known philosopher, "If time did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it"....Oh, wait, someone's already done it..

[swansont]

Ah, but time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

 

Douglas Adams

[YT2095]

ROFLOL.

 

YT hands Swansont a Pan-Galactic gargle blaster, Shaddap will ya!

 

I nearly choked on my beer!

[foodchain]

distance illusionary any more than statistical mechanics and thermodynamics make the concept of temperature illusionary.

 

I agree with you position about something being fundamental, it may be a bit reductionist but really if you cant answer for what is true fundamental I think it hurts anything else really in regards to understanding.

 

For me though I understand time as something real. Its far to applicable to physical reality to be merely artificial human construct alone. For instance with general relativity, and the time evolution operator of quantum mechanics. The periodic table with periodicity would imply that also I think, along with biological or chemical evolution in general. I think the problem comes with the definition again back to your original stance somewhat on the idea of something being fundamental.

 

I think the greatest thing QM has done for science is end the idea of determination being fundamental. So if determination of the next second of anything anywhere is not deterministic 100% then well time I guess is occurring really as it is physically then.

[YT2095]

Time to ME is simply that which stops Everything happening at once.

so by That parameter I judge time to be quite real.

 

I don`t judge my Perception of time to be "Real" only real to me (again Subjective and relative to ME). else I wouldn`t surround myself with several dozen clocks and STILL manage to burn food on the cooker.

 

I`ll let my Instruments guide towards a Closer reality of "REAL" time periods.

[thedarkshade]

Subjective or a mind dimension. Definitely not a flow!

[Phi for All]

... but I can't resist. A friend of a friend has an autistic son (20 something) who, while he can't hold down a job due to his autism, is socially and mentally functional enough to do many things, including using public transportation. My friend met this guy and says he has a very interesting point of view on most mundane subjects. Time in particular is something he doesn't see the way we do and he's often perplexed with how others view time. He can read a clock but almost never relates things in terms of time.

 

The anecdote involves this guy meeting his mother downtown for lunch. They were to meet at noon at a certain place. The mother arrived early and got a call shortly after from her son at their home number (caller ID verified). He had forgotten which restaurant they were going to meet at. She reminded him, and also chided him that he would be late. He assured her he would be there at noon. She told him that the bus would take half an hour and it was already 11:50am. He told her he would get there at noon as promised.

 

She got creepy chills when he showed up 10 minutes later at noon. When she asked if he took the bus he said no. He also denied riding with anyone. When she asked him how he got there he couldn't explain it. He says he didn't walk but it was "like that". His mother claims he is a poor liar and anyone can tell when he's making something up. To this day they haven't figured out how he could have done this. She herself takes 20 minutes by car in traffic. Even on a Sunday with little traffic you can't get there in 10 minutes.

 

So if time is subjective and situational perception can be vary among individuals, does someone who has a non-standard view of time affect time differently or just perceive that they affect it differently? Does your head hurt as much as mine right now?