Is Time An Illusion?

[iNow]

So, let me try to paraphrase. Please validate the accuracy of my reprsentation of your words. Time does, indeed, have a definition, but the common definition is not a part of our actual reality or existence?

 

 

Sounds a bit internally inconsistent, if that is, indeed, what you mean. Curious.

[elas]

Norman Albers

 

I think there is an alternative way of explaining 'spacetime' and would like you to consider the following:

 

there is a "spacetime fabric"

 

There is a historical record in the form of light that travels outward from each point of light generation; the observer sees this as an unstoppable film; only the frame present when the time is ‘now’ is observable.

The speed at which each frame travels is determined by the density of matter (gravitons). The speed of light is only constant in a vacuum. Because each observer is in a local gravity field, each observer sees light arriving at the same constant speed regardless of the direction from which the light is coming or the relative velocities of observer and the point of origin of the light. (Because the photons are being passed from graviton to graviton at the local rate).

 

The entire fabric of mass and radiation behaves as per this fabric we are discussing

 

Wrong way around; mass determines the structure of the ‘spacetime’ frame. The term ‘spacetime’ is simply part of a professional language; it is the mathematics of the movement of light in a partial vacuum.

[Norman Albers]

So, let me try to paraphrase. Please validate the accuracy of my reprsentation of your words. Time does, indeed, have a definition, but the common definition is not a part of our actual reality or existence?

 

 

Sounds a bit internally inconsistent, if that is, indeed, what you mean. Curious.

 

What is inconsistent is trying to do physics in different reference frames. General relativity starts with the statement that physics is the same everywhere locally experienced. We will see the clock near a great mass going slower by our clock; it "truly" is, as are all definable physical processes and oscillations. Gravitation is the stretching and compression of the vacuum fields. Elas, why do you say "partial vacuum"? These days I am seeing the vacuum field as the substrate which manifests radiation and massive "particles". Mass is local structure.

 

As with Maxwell's equations, this is a circle so don't get caught in causality.

[swansont]

Let's try and stay on topic here.

 

"Vacuum force" stuff has been moved

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=31256

[Edtharan]

All this "Time is an Illusion" stuff is because there is a "lay" definition of Time and a"scientific" definition of time and people are trying to mash them together.

 

The lay definition is based on our (extremely) falable perceptions. However, the Scientific one is mathematical and is beyond understanding based on our perceptions.

 

Just because we can't understand the mathematica defintion through our perceptions, does not mean that we can't understand it at all. It only means that we can't understand it so long as we try to udnerstand it in terms of our perceptions (like using analogies and such).

 

Try this one: Can you explain what space is without refereing to distance or using analogies?

 

Well, my definition is: That which exists between two points.

 

This also applies to Time: That which exists between two events.

 

We could use all these arguments that attempt to present time as an "Illusion" (or otherwise) and turn it around and use them to show that space is just the same.

 

Is space an illusion because we can't write an explaination of it? Is something an illusion just because we don't understand it in some way?

 

Just because we perceieve something doe it make it concrete (not an illusion)? Just because we don't percieve something is it an illusion or not an illusion?

 

To answer all these only requiers us to show that the "Thing" (if you haven't been following I mean Time) has some physical reality beyond our perceptions. As long as we rely on our "perceptions" as Judge of reality or illusion we will tie ourselves into knots needlessly.

 

Perceptions can be foold, therfore we can not rely on them as a judge of Reality or Illusion. They can be fooled, even by ourselves (and this foolling is necessary for our functioning and survival).

 

Because perception is unreliable, we can not rely on it.

 

Well to determine if time exists (as currently proposed as a4th dimension in a space time "fabric"), we can look at what points and events are. Events are defined as Two points in Time. That is: If time has an existance not tied to our perceptions, then there can exist two points seperated by time. Just as with space there cvan be two points seperated by distance.

 

Now, we we can have two objects occupy the same spatial location (the difference between the spatial points is 0), but they do not collide (that is they are not the same object, and dose not have to "push" the other out so as to be able to occupy the same spatial location), then they must have some form of physical speration that is not space.

 

This seperation is called Time.

 

As anyone can perform this experiemnt at home, it is very simple to show that Time must have a physical existance and so therefore is not an Illusion.

 

Time is not an Illusion (hiwever, our perceptions of it can be).

[thedarkshade]

I agree with Ed here when he says that we cannot reply on our ability to percept! It is indeed like that. Not just time, but to understand anything (literally anything) there needs to be a good coordination of our ability to percept (our senses) and our rational part (the mind).

The perception is actually nothing but chaotic informations that our senses provide us, but then how do we orientate so good when we only get chaos from our senses? That is because our brain reorganizes those informations in such way so it can make us possible this good orientation.

How would we behave if we had just senses and no mind? Well, chaotically!

How would we behave if we had just mind and no senses? Well, we wouldn't at all since we don't have a sense of physical medium.

 

If we rely on just perceptions then we wouldn't really need to go to school, or study or get a PhD since perception is something that anyone can do! But would there be right perceptions? Well, we have to ignore that since we're trying to rely just in perception here.

 

If we relied only in our perceptions, then how could we possibly know that sun has a volume of a million times as much as earth? We then would live in a blind reality. This is why there needs to be a good coordination between physical perception and brain to understand in a sense-making way our reality, and time too.

 

But I believe that time is one of those four fundamentals (time space matter energy) that we take them for granted, but that are inherently necessary!

[xptoast]

Lets note these facts..

 

Time is kept with physical objects that use a known constant in order to keep track of time. We do that because those objects are using the effect of time to show it to us. What I am saying is that time isn't an object. Its a process. Its a perceptual illusion in that its not real. Its only real because we give a name to the effect of particles interacting over a period of time in a predictable way. No forward in time or backward in time with a machine. Time flows because particle interactions continue to go about in their predictable ways. Note: This is not of the space time theory or time dilation. This is of what happens and is simple to see in the world around us.

[raf]

Its a perceptual illusion in that its not real. Its only real because we give a name to the effect . i think you mean its a perceptual illusion that its REAL.its only real because we give a name to....

 

time is a process and the event is real but our perception of it (subjective, distance,ect) may be viewed differently

as we are bound by our eyes and open to perception.so your present may differ from mine with the elements of ( long distance, speed of light) but in every day life, the difference in time between two people should not vary much even if they are standing in different positions viewing the same event.

[asprung]

The universe only exsits "now" the past has become its history and the future has yet to come.

[thedarkshade]

The universe only exsits "now" the past has become its history and the future has yet to come.

It reminds me something like:

They are wrong who say that there are three times: past, present and future. There is only present time that had to do with the past, present time that has to do with the present and present time that has to do with the future. How can we measure the past when it existed but now it doesn't exist? How can we measure the future when it will exist but now it doesn't exit?

[Quartile]

Im not sure if it has been said here or not and I am kind of in a hurry so I didnt read through ALL the posts, but...

 

I think it is important, if we are to answer the question "what is time" (because thats the question here, isnt it?), to first answer another question. If time is existing subjectively or otherwise, it would be important to find out what exactly would happen if it were to not exist subjectively or otherwise. That is, what would "reality" be like if we were able to freeze one singular "instant" of time? Well, since the movement of matter is the only precept by which we can define time, all matter would necessarily have to be motionless in one singular instant, including light. But we already know that photons have a rest mass of zero and that they are always moving (at the speed of light, nonetheless)! This is apparently a catch-22.

 

Regardless, I have always been predisposed to think of time as a function of change. Without change, time does not exist because there is nothing to quantify or qualify it by.

[thedarkshade]

If time is existing subjectively or otherwise, it would be important to find out what exactly would happen if it were to not exist subjectively or otherwise.

Huh? You mean, exist in an objective way! I can't even imagine! I mean, touch it, move it, have total control on it. It makes no sense!

[Norman Albers]

Energy changes form. So do we.

[Quartile]

Huh? You mean, exist in an objective way! I can't even imagine! I mean, touch it, move it, have total control on it. It makes no sense!

 

Haha no I didnt mean in an objective way, even though experiencing the aging of my own body is quite an objective experience of time if i do say so myself.

 

By "subjective or otherwise" I was trying to say "if it does exist, then how ever it exists" because there have been some posts in the thread where people argue that there is some sort of grey area between being subjectively or objectively, at least I think? I hardly scanned all the posts lol

 

[Edtharan]

Huh? You mean, exist in an objective way! I can't even imagine! I mean, touch it, move it, have total control on it. It makes no sense!

Can you give me a piece of distance that I can knock a coffee cup over with? No. But you don't think of distance as not being "objective". Same with Time. I can't hand you a chunk of time as a paper weight, but I can measure it and demonstrate it's existance indipendent of my own (by showing that your perception of time is different and seperate from my own).

[thedarkshade]

Can you give me a piece of distance that I can knock a coffee cup over with? No. But you don't think of distance as not being "objective". Same with Time. I can't hand you a chunk of time as a paper weight, but I can measure it and demonstrate it's existance indipendent of my own (by showing that your perception of time is different and seperate from my own).

Not that's exactly why I said "I can't even imagine"!