What is time? Does time even exist?

[Daniel Foreman]

Indeed, I see no evidence that suggests time is a dimension of any kind. We can easily test whether or not space is a dimension of course, we are physically built to interact with, and interpret it. Just throw a ball and watch it move through three planes, X, Y and Z. We have a nice neat little co-ordinate system that easily represents 3D space on 2D surfaces (computer screens, paper, etc) and because of the way we are built we can look at 2D surfaces and convert it in our minds into a 3D presentation. Heck, bend light at a different angle towards the left and right eye and we've got a lovely pseudo 3D effect that only makes 33% of us vomit into our pop-corn bucket .

 

So given the ease in which we work with standard spatial dimensions, how can we then raise time to the same lofty position? We can not see it, nor can we interact with it. We can not slow time down, nor can we speed it up. I know it feels different, When standing in a queue minutes crawl by, when swept away with a lover hours pass by like seconds. But this is a human perceptual error, and can easily be refuted by a clock. Make one person stand in a queue for 5 hours, and give another person something they simply love doing for the same period of time, put a clock between them and despite their different opinions the clock itself will be completely ineffective.

 

Next, if we are to define time as a whole dimension, at least in the same sense of space, then we must be able to freely travel up and down it at will. I can move freely within a single spacial dimension. I can not freely move up and down time. I can no more speak to my younger self and give him the lottery numbers, than I can visit my older self to see what I die of, and how I can prevent it. I am controlled by the ever rolling now. My concept of past (memories) is only offset by my lack of future knowledge.

 

My favourite author sums up time with a race called the Trolls. The trolls have the unique idea that they "are walking through time backwards" the reasoning being, that they can see the past, but they have their backs to the future. (Sir Terry Pratchett). I've mentioned this to a few people and they gone "Oh yeah, I can see that." and why not it fits in with what we observe so easily. Who knows there might even be a few people around forming a religion around it as I type.

 

But consider what we are actually "seeing". How many times have your memories been wrong, how many of your childhood memories have been created through the power of suggestion and imagination as much as real life events. Have you ever been told something, not remember it, then come back a week later with a self constructed memory? A suggestive memory? More extreme cases show lack of memory at all. What happens to the "past" if you can't remember it? What happens to the past if two people who lived through the same moment in time remember it differently?

 

If this level of imperfect memory exists, then it's reasonable to conclude that we're not "seeing" the past at all, but we are instead bags of meat who's file keeping abilities are rather less than that of typical PC Hard Drive. And of course we can not "see" the future at all. No one outside an insane asylum (or a rather profitable mystic meg franchise) can claim to directly see the future. I don't know about you guys but if I could I'd be checking out next weeks lottery jackpot. Those that claim they do always put massive limitations to the skill, so that when you ask them what the lottery numbers are, they have an escape route to save face.

 

So the only aspect of time that exists, that is has a physical on-going presence in the universe is the here and now. So if there is no physical divide between, the past, the present, and the future, which is the summary of times purpose. Then Time as it is commonly accepted can not exist.

 

Having said that, within the realm of mathematics, time is a rather accurate way of "documenting events" that is if we record data on anything, be it world history, of the path of a photon through space over a period, then comparing data sets is very useful and very important. Heck we can even claim to see the future, well ok not see. But at least have a damn good guess at it based on previous experience behaviour, of course any such prediction remains theoretical right up until that event happens. But just because we've created a useful conceptual tool. An index system for events if you like, that doesn't mean it has a physical existence within the universe.

[TrappedLight]

 

No. They are all dimensions of spacetime - but time is not a spatial dimension, the metric makes that clear with the sign change.

 

 

 

Who told you time is not a dimension of space? A sign change only makes it an imaginary dimension of space. Time is the forth leg of the pythagorean space triangle!

Indeed, I see no evidence that suggests time is a dimension of any kind.

 

There is no evidence for time either of any sort outside of the subjective experience of it. This doesn't change the fact that time is in fact an imaginary dimension of space, where it acts as a forth leg of the space triangle, as I said above. Mathematically, it is treated as a space dimension.

In fact, a quick wiki search proves what I was saying, ''imaginary time:

 

''In essence, imaginary time is a way of looking at the time dimension as if it were

a dimension of space''

Edited September 26, 2013 by TrappedLight

[Daniel Foreman]

 

''In essence, imaginary time is a way of looking at the time dimension as if it were

a dimension of space''

And sadly this has lead to the-guy-on-the-street into thinking time actually is a dimension. A great example of science fiction taking more meaning to Joe Average than Science Fact.

[TrappedLight]

And sadly this has lead to the-guy-on-the-street into thinking time actually is a dimension. A great example of science fiction taking more meaning to Joe Average than Science Fact.

 

 

Mathematically, it is a dimension. If it is a real facet of the world, is another question. Space-time may not be fundamental. In fact, when Dirac was asked whether he believed there was a unification of time on space, he replied that he did not think it was a real fundamental feature of the world. Howsoever, this is not the general view of most scientists today.

And the premise of the thread is questioning that it is a dimension at all.

 

 

If space and time are unified, you cannot escape that it would be a dimension, certainly in present theory, it is treated as a forth spatial dimension. Perhaps it would be a good idea to tackle both concepts to reach an answer to the question.

 

But saying time is not a space dimension is just wrong, at least if we wish to stick to mainstream.

[Daniel Foreman]

I rarely bother with the mainstream, it's usually full of people who took someone elses word for it, or at least didn't have a great deal of time to test and verify.

 

The more I look into it, the more I see that the only evidence for it lays in theoretical mathematics without achievable experiments. If someone demonstrates an honest to god working time machine then, hey. I was wrong! But evidence like GPS Time dilation lays, at least i my mind, with the reduction of motion within a moving or state changing mass, rather than time itself actually changing. Honestly until time becomes as observable and testable as space itself I'm not willing to accept it as an honest to god working dimension and shall thus treat it as nothing more than a mathematical tool designed to index prior events and possible future predictions..

Edited September 26, 2013 by Daniel Foreman

[TrappedLight]

I rarely bother with the mainstream, it's usually full of people who took someone elses word for it, or at least didn't have a great deal of time to test and verify.

 

You might find yourself in trouble with moderators here if you don't bother with mainstream.

[imatfaal]

Who told you time is not a dimension of space? A sign change only makes it an imaginary dimension of space. Time is the forth leg of the pythagorean space triangle!

Frankly as I quoted Taylor and Wheeler it would be obvious at least one serious source told me. The sign change does not make it imaginary - it preserves the invariant interval and thus allows causality to hold. If time was a simple spatial dimension then the metric would be simple and all positive - it is not.

 

There is no evidence for time either of any sort outside of the subjective experience of it. This doesn't change the fact that time is in fact an imaginary dimension of space, where it acts as a forth leg of the space triangle, as I said above. Mathematically, it is treated as a space dimension.

mathematically it is treated differently - if you were to be correct then to calculate the space time interval you would simple work out a distance in 4d - you do not do this. Please explain why this is not the case if you are correct.

In fact, a quick wiki search proves what I was saying, ''imaginary time:

 

''In essence, [/size]imaginary time is a way of looking at the [/size]time dimension as if it were [/size]

a [/size]dimension of space''

No - it disproves it. ie in order to treat the temporal dimension in the same way as the three spatial dimensions you need to consider that time is imaginary. But unless we are doing that spcific thought experiment we do not use complex variables for time and it does not take on imaginary values - so apart from toy models and hypotheses we can say that time is not imaginary and that the temporal dimension is not spatial.

 

 

Mathematically, it is a dimension. If it is a real facet of the world, is another question. Space-time may not be fundamental. In fact, when Dirac was asked whether he believed there was a unification of time on space, he replied that he did not think it was a real fundamental feature of the world. Howsoever, this is not the general view of most scientists today.

 

 

If space and time are unified, you cannot escape that it would be a dimension, certainly in present theory, it is treated as a forth spatial dimension. Perhaps it would be a good idea to tackle both concepts to reach an answer to the question.

 

But saying time is not a space dimension is just wrong, at least if we wish to stick to mainstream.

I have already quoted the pre-eminent teachers of gr so I will try wikipedia which is less authoritative but blunter

 

 

Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as existing in three dimensions and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions.

[TrappedLight]

''Different sort?''

 

The time dimension is also of a different sort when viewed as an imaginary dimension of space. It is still a dimension of space, that was what I was taught, if you speculate otherwise, that isn't how I was taught physics!

 

The four dimensional continuum is a single object, time is not outside of the definition of space, only that it has a space dimension I believe if memory serves, 90 degrees off of the spacial dimensions. A four dimensional object has the appearance of a tesseract hypercube. Using this, you can visualize the physical properties of the deviation away from the normal dimensions of space. It's just an angle, but it's also a mathematical facet of the theory. It's very important actually, in statistical mechanics (I think) and also certain branches of cosmology in which the presence of the imaginary time dimension can smooth out singularities because of its orientation to the legs of space. It doesn't remove the Big Bang per se, but it can represent the universe without a beginning of time mathematically-speaking.

Also, it is important to know, imaginary time is real space, and imaginary space is real time.

[Daniel Foreman]

 

 

You might find yourself in trouble with moderators here if you don't bother with mainstream.

I don't see why? This isn't the dark ages, I'm allowed to question conventional wisdom if it doesn't make sense to me. In fact it's only through the act of questioning that you come to understand anything. What has more value? Something you repeat out of a book, or from a conversation, or something you think hard about, question and test. If something yields practical results I won't go against it. I wouldn't for example tell you that "no I don't think electrons flow, and that silicon could be the basis of chips." because frankly I'm sitting in front of a computer lol. But when we deal with theoretical issues like the nature of the HIGGS field, how the universe started, if time exists and whether or not swiss cheese could ever be used to produce a kind of elephant (ok maybe not that last one), there are no clear cut answers. These fields benefit from ideas, unless perhaps they are about cheese, or perhaps the cheese question will turn out to be the key to unlocking he secrets of creation.

Big Bang per se, but it can represent the universe without a beginning of time

 

But can it define a universe without the beginning of motion. We accept that the universe is flying apart as a big bunch of galaxies, it would make sense of they were all generated from a single point, and yet at the same time it wouldn't. The problem with that thinking is "where did the mass come from" at which point we have to ask outselves what it outside the universe? Is the universe everything? Is it one of many universes? And how could we possibly find out?

 

The way I see it we nee to:

 

A) Find the edge of the universe, the point where space just stops being space, a place where matter can not go.

B) Discover a proto-photon that can exist outside our space, interact with anything else like other universes or something entirely different and then return to this universe in some kind of measurable way.

 

Or alternatively.

 

Identify and directly ask the creator of everything, if in fact it was created by anything other than chaos. Which leads me to another amusing quote from Terry Pratchett "Chaos always wins in the end, because it's better organised."

[TrappedLight]

I don't see why? This isn't the dark ages...

 

Yet your post has now ended up in speculations?

[Daniel Foreman]

TrappedLight it started out as a speculation, evolved into speculation, continued as speculation and finally became, the speculation we know and love today. If you think there are any absolutes in the theoretical, then you'd better have a damned good experiment in mind to prove it.

[TrappedLight]

The question isn't whether science speculates, the question is if you took that speculative role yourself in the science corner? Let science speculate what it can, even provide reference to speculation when due.

 

Don't admit you are willing to speculate in a non-speculative section. I learned that myself when I first came here. I learned my lesson.

[Popcorn Sutton]

I want to say, thank you for introducing me to imaginary time. It has led me on a relatively long bit of research through Wikipedia. I have some comments on it, but I'll put those aside for now.

[TrappedLight]

I want to say, thank you for introducing me to imaginary time. It has led me on a relatively long bit of research through Wikipedia. I have some comments on it, but I'll put those aside for now.

 

No go right ahead. I could possibly help.

[Popcorn Sutton]

Well, as with most of my research, it leads to computation. So I followed the path of computation in this particular research endeavor. Imaginary time is preferable to real time for the exact reason stared in the wikipedia article, imaginary time is a property of real space (and I consider it to be this way because it is parametric and has clearly defined areas of segmentation). Imaginary time exists now and only now, but now in this case should not be considered as present. Present, in this case, would refer to what is proximal, however, through statistics, we can show the amount of space you wouls need to travel though to find an exact copy of a sequence of particles (ex. Yourself). Taking these assumptions a step further, statistics can also show how much space you would need to travel through in order to find a future or past instance of a sequence of particles, and this is achievable by a computer. You take alot of data, feed the program an input, and the program performs a recursive function which predicts/performs a relevant output. This goes to say that the concept of now does not necessarily mean "at present". Now is a concept that applies at any given moment in real time, and therefor is a component of imaginary time. I would even say that it is the only component of imaginary time.

[TrappedLight]

Actually it is a slice of time in the present, but has no boundary because it is a horizontal slice of time made in the imaginary axis.

[Popcorn Sutton]

Ok, will this bit of information may be valuable under these circumstances.

 

In computer science, or more specifically, turing theories, there are two a priori notions. Memory and time. Time can be used in two ways, as a string, or as a dictionary. I would hope that anyone using linear bounded automata make time a dictionary for efficiency purposes. The difference between a string and a dictionary is that a dictionary has two parts, an entry and its corresponding part. If time is being used as a dictionary, then both the entry and its part are strings, but they are seperate and only the entry is within knowledge. Parts of the corresponding part are in knowledge, but if you treat it as a whole, it's highly improbable that it will be in knowledge. If you treat time as a string, then the function that accesses the string has to skip over large portions of the string in order to find the input that is in knowledge that is also in the string. This is highly inefficient.

 

I would say that the difference between treating time as real or as imaginary is the difference in computing time as a string or as a dictionary.

 

There's alot more to say about this but it will take long to write out on my phone.

[swansont]

 

Yet your post has now ended up in speculations?

 

Yes, and somehow the word has continued revolving on its axis, dogs and cats are not living together, and there is no mass hysteria. The validity of the arguments presented has not changed.

 

This should have been in speculations all along. Having the OP admit that mainstream science was not a priority for discussion was simply a reminder that it was not, and a catalyst for moving it. It is not, as was implied earlier, a sign of being in trouble with anybody.

[Daniel Foreman]

All theoretical science is speculation with little or not real world evidence, so the next time someone discusses time, black holes, gravity, you'd better be sure to move those as well.

[Myuncle]

All theoretical science is speculation with little or not real world evidence, so the next time someone discusses time, black holes, gravity, you'd better be sure to move those as well.

Well said. Priority of science should be rationality, logic and experiments. If priority is just being mainstream, then you are just going against science and progress. I would feel proud of having a nice thread moved to speculations, the only problem is that it will be cancelled in the future, so those who enjoyed the thread should save it in their computers....

 

 

Mathematically, it is treated as a space dimension.

Mathematically you can treat any human idea as a dimension.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Myuncle

[swansont]

All theoretical science is speculation with little or not real world evidence, so the next time someone discusses time, black holes, gravity, you'd better be sure to move those as well.

 

Your objection is duly noted and given the consideration it merits.

[Daniel Foreman]

Is that passive aggressive talk for "shut up I'm a mod?" lol

[swansont]

Is that passive aggressive talk for "shut up I'm a mod?" lol

 

More like "you are talking through your hat" from an actual scientist.

[Daniel Foreman]

What exactly constitutes an actual scientist? It wouldn't be say...

 

 

 

Wikipedia: A scientist, in a broad sense, is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge.

or

 

 

 

Wikipedia: In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method.^[1] The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science

 

Or perhaps you really mean, you have a job that involves science. So "real scientists" only count if they are paid? Or perhaps a real scientist to you, is someone with a PhD, or some other kind of degree?

 

So Swansont? What exactl is a "real scientist" to you?

Edited September 30, 2013 by Daniel Foreman

[juanrga]

Time is the evolution parameter of the universe.