Question about time

[DimaMazin]

Yes. But you can't narrow this to a specific experiment. You may have an experiment in mind, but if a different experiment confirms the model, then it confirms the model. You have no business arbitrarily excluding it.

Well.But how can wrong prediction of time ,in the concrete experiment,make your business?

[swansont]

Well.But how can wrong prediction of time ,in the concrete experiment,make your business?

 

You keep referring to a wrong prediction, but haven't specifically stated what it is. I'll say again: you should start a new thread and discuss it.

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

jchardy

 

i have split off your post to a new thread in speculations. your post has little direct connexion with this thread and thus is seen to be hijacking the topic. Please do not hijack other threads in future - and maybe take another look at our rules

 

[Zvonko]

 

Length contraction can be inferred from time dilation, and it has indirectly been measured in relativistic collision experiments, where the length-contracted shape of the nucleus is required for the theory to match experiment.

Thought experiment: If we imagine a photon as a 3-D sphere traveling at c, we can also imagine that it can rotate in each of the 3 dimensions. Let's assume that it does rotate in all 3 axis simultaneously for this experiment. While this photon is traveling in a particular direction, would we expect length contraction in that direction at its' maximum value - that is that its' length would be zero? If so, what does that mean in terms of the impacts to the 3 different axial rotations? I imagine a sphere where 2 of the 3 axial rotations are contracted due to the direction of motion, leaving the image of a flat, 2-D disc spinning through space (no longer a sphere). The remaining (3rd) rotation is the only unaffected circular motion, and resembles a field around the photon.

Hope I have drawn a clear description here.

My question is: What can be drawn from this thought experiment? Is it an accurate depiction(if not, why not)? And are the 2 axis of rotation that have been lost due to length contraction a). Lost or immeasurable, b). measurable if we change our relative speed to it, c). represented as a binary manifestation because of contraction, or d). incorporated somehow into what is known as 'spin'.

I keep toying with the main variables that we do measure with light (frequency, wavelength, and speed, as well as polarization, em properties (and I wonder if there are others), wondering if this 3-D representation of light spinning in all 3 (or more?) axis can shed any new light specifically due to the length contraction.

Anyone?

[swansont]

That model is not consistent with what we know. Photons don't rotate on their axes, for example — the wave vector is in the direction of propagation, with the electric and magnetic field perpendicular to it and to each other. There's no freedom for this to rotate. Even modeling it as a sphere is dicey.

 

What we do know is that if we are not in the frame of the photon emitter, there will be a Doppler shift.

[machapungo]

I agree with those how say time is a mental construct and not a physical reality.

I agree that motion is real physically and is a form of energy but time is not a form of energy.

I agree that time is nothing more than a way to measure motion and to measure anything there must be a thinking entity to do the measuring.

A clock is nothing more than a repetitive motion with a reasonably consistent repetition rate.

 

We thinkers cannot even think of much without using the notion of time because we were born in a universe where everything is in motion relative to most other things that exist.

To be anything remotely close to intelligent we must have and use the mental construct of time to deal with our environment of motion.

Viewing time as physically real is a confusion of the thinking observer with the observed.

This means that a notion of time, much less time as a physical reality, cannot exist apart from a thinking entity.

 

Imagine our early universe, full of objects in relative motion, and a mythical god snaps her fingers and all thinking entities vanish.

Given this situation would motion still exist?

Of course it would, and this is consistent with all of the motions in our young universe existing before thinking entities arrived on the scene.

However, there is no way to measure the motions without the thinking entity even though there are plenty of repetitive clocks.

Planets are orbiting stars and spinning on an axis and Cesium atoms are decaying at a very constant rate.

However, these natural clocks have no way of being viewed or used as clocks without a thinking entity.

Therefore, time is dependent upon the existence of thinking entities but motion and space are not.

I, therefore, assert that anything that is dependent upon the existence of a thinking entity to perceive it cannot be an independent real physical reality.

[admello]

 

Effectively "before time" is a meaningless expression, but physics documentaries have to lack rigour specially those dealing with speculative topics such as cosmology beyond the standard model.

 

Some cosmological models introduce a concept of time before the Big Bang. As the Nobel laureate Prigogine likes to say "time precedes existence" by "existence" he means Big Bang energy-matter. In these models, the Big Bang is a kind of phase transition from a previous quantum vacuum.

 

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/108305.article

 

 

No, time is not a measurement for movement. In fact, movement is defined with respect to time [math]x=x(t)[/math], [math]v=v(t)[/math]...

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.

I agree with those how say time is a mental construct and not a physical reality.

I agree that motion is real physically and is a form of energy but time is not a form of energy.

I agree that time is nothing more than a way to measure motion and to measure anything there must be a thinking entity to do the measuring.

A clock is nothing more than a repetitive motion with a reasonably consistent repetition rate.

 

We thinkers cannot even think of much without using the notion of time because we were born in a universe where everything is in motion relative to most other things that exist.

To be anything remotely close to intelligent we must have and use the mental construct of time to deal with our environment of motion.

Viewing time as physically real is a confusion of the thinking observer with the observed.

This means that a notion of time, much less time as a physical reality, cannot exist apart from a thinking entity.

 

Imagine our early universe, full of objects in relative motion, and a mythical god snaps her fingers and all thinking entities vanish.

Given this situation would motion still exist?

Of course it would, and this is consistent with all of the motions in our young universe existing before thinking entities arrived on the scene.

However, there is no way to measure the motions without the thinking entity even though there are plenty of repetitive clocks.

Planets are orbiting stars and spinning on an axis and Cesium atoms are decaying at a very constant rate.

However, these natural clocks have no way of being viewed or used as clocks without a thinking entity.

Therefore, time is dependent upon the existence of thinking entities but motion and space are not.

I, therefore, assert that anything that is dependent upon the existence of a thinking entity to perceive it cannot be an independent real physical reality.

 

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.

[Strange]

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?

 

Firstly, you seem to be confusing our perception or measurement of time with time itself.

 

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.

 

 

time seems to me to merely be a mental construct

 

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?

 

 

There are concepts of mystics ...

Yes, but this is a science forum so that is hardly relevant.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Strange

[swansont]

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.

What about length? That's a mental construct, too. You need to have objects separated to perceive it, so without objects, there is no way to have length.

 

IOW, so what if it's a concept?

 

 

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.

So ordered events did not happen without this mental construct?

[admello]

 

Firstly, you seem to be confusing our perception or measurement of time with time itself.

 

But that's the point. Time cannot exist without a perception to create it's existence.

 

 

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?"

 

Well it's not a matter of what one can learn, in terms of us learning what our conceptualizing and/or mathematical minds can underatand, One does not find things useless simply because we can't put it into formulas. As Heisenberg said "“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”

 

You cannot "freeze" everything. For good physical reasons, absolute zero cannot be achieved.

 

It was a rhetorical question to point to a possibility. Einstein himself even used these exploratory questions to arrive at his conclusions. Although he had to have a very soild mathematical education to arrive at his conclusions, he was deemed a genius because he was willing to intitially go outside of the math into the philosophical and experimental, and that is actually how he acheived his breaktrough ideas, not by being a good mathematician. If he stuck to the normal discipline manners of science and math, he never would have discovered what he did. Now granted, what I am saying it not even what he said, but I am doing the same thing he did. by taking a moment to step outside of the math itself, rather than letting the math drown one's self. And this is easy for me to do, because I cannot even hold a candle to the mathematical abilities that others here probably have.

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.

 

Who says?

 

 

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?

 

Great question. How did you even know that it existed for 13.7 billion years unless your mind could compare what you presently perceive, to what you have previously learned and then also compare that to what you expect to happen? How can that information even exist without the mind having a concept? And I am not saying that the concept is inaccurate, I am merely calling it what it actually is. A mental concept. And mental concepts can be true or false. Mental concepts can only exist in one place. The human mind. And they can only be considered reality if the human mind projects those concepts as such, and cannot be so until the human mind decides that. So is the human mind the center of reality?.

 

Yes, but this is a science forum so that is hardly relevant.

 

I was invited here by someone else, and anytime you think I should merely be laughed at, I will graciously leave. I do not pretend to be a scientist nor a mathametican, but you would be surprised what the REAL ones actually think.

 

What about length? That's a mental construct, too. You need to have objects separated to perceive it, so without objects, there is no way to have length.

 

IOW, so what if it's a concept?

 

Sure length is a concept as well, and cannot exist unless someone creates the perception. But i was speaking about time.

 

 

 

So ordered events did not happen without this mental construct?

 

All that I sauid is that the only thing that is actually reality is the present moment, and all other things are concepts of the mind, whether they are accurate or not. And sometimes the mental concept is accurate and sometimes not, but it is a useful mental concept that I myself have to use. And there is no problem in using it, as long as one sees it as the concept that it actually is, rather than a reality.

 

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.

[swansont]

If the present is the only reality, then the past isn't real. It never happened. Really?

[JrPahoodneyMan]

Time may be an effect of gravity. The further you get away from gravity's pull, the slower time goes.

[Delta1212]

Time may be an effect of gravity. The further you get away from gravity's pull, the slower time goes.

It happens the other way around.

[admello]

What about length? That's a mental construct, too. You need to have objects separated to perceive it, so without objects, there is no way to have length.

 

IOW, so what if it's a concept?

 

 

 

So ordered events did not happen without this mental construct?

 

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.

If the present is the only reality, then the past isn't real. It never happened. Really?

 

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.

Time may be an effect of gravity. The further you get away from gravity's pull, the slower time goes.

 

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.

[swansont]

 

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.

 

But the past events did, in fact, happen. You can't even have a concept like past and present without time.

 

One issue here is that it's not clear what is meant by something being real. As opposed to what? Real as in physical object, or real as in not an illusion, or something else?

[StringJunky]

There is the phenomenon of time which is the order of events and there is the human construct of time which we mentally superimpose on that observed order for accounting purposes...the human construct was borne out of the observation of that order. If time didn't exist we would not have evolved memory...there had to be a stimulus for it to happen. An organism won't evolve an ability if there isn't some pervasive existing condition to adapt to that keeps favouring that ability through successive generations.

 

Another point that Swansont brought up a while ago that I think is logically indisputable is that two objects cannot occupy the same spatial co-ordinates at the same time but can at different times, so, time exists as a real phenomenon.

[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.

There is the phenomenon of time which is the order of events and there is the human construct of time which we mentally superimpose on that observed order for accounting purposes...the human construct was borne out of the observation of that order. If time didn't exist we would not have evolved memory...there had to be a stimulus for it to happen. An organism won't evolve an ability if there isn't some pervasive existing condition to adapt to that keeps favouring that ability through successive generations.

 

Another point that Swansont brought up a while ago that I think is logically indisputable is that two objects cannot occupy the same spatial co-ordinates at the same time but can at different times, so, time exists as a real phenomenon.

 

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..

Edited November 6, 2013 by admello

[md65536]

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.

You're making a common crackpot-like mistake of criticising the scientific understanding of something (time), while demonstrating that you don't understand it. Who treats time almost as if it has mass??? What does that even mean? Who treats it as an object with existence besides its measurement?

 

You're also making a common philosopher mistake of coming up with a way to think about a concept that ignores all of the functionality of the existing definition. You dismissed the analogy to distance, but time is treated very much like distance in science. It involves the ordering of events, but it is also a metric where the time between events has consistent measurements. So yes, if you remove the "measurement" aspect of time, which is what gives it its definition in science, then you can say what you want about it (it only exists in the present or whatever) but you must realize that you've ignored everything that is useful about the concept of time in science, and replaced it with some vague philosophical thoughts that might be interesting to think about or lead to new ideas, but are not useful like the scientific definition of time is.

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

Sure, but everything can act as a recorder of events. The tree remains on the forest floor, as an effect of it falling. There are atoms in a rock that only exist because they were made in a star that exploded. You can say "That star only exists in the past" but its existence is still indicated by the rock's present existence. Now you'll have to define what it means to be "real" in the past. Since this star, or this sound, no longer exists, can you meaningfully say that whether it happened or not doesn't matter? And if so, what does it mean that the rock, or the memory, is there now, if the events that caused it are dismissed? Or if not, in what sense is the past event not real? Edited November 6, 2013 by md65536

[Strange]

Who says? [re definition of second]

 

Here: The International System of Units (SI)

 

After the definition of the second (page 24) it says: "This definition refers to a cesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 K."

[machapungo]

 

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.

 

I agree with every word that admello has just said. It is a weird feeling to encounter someone who says things that exactly describe thoughts and writings that also independently came out of your own mind. Because, of encountering admello's initial posting on this topic I was the one that sent him a personal message asking him to return to the topic. It's not that I want a backer to gang up on other perspectives, One thing it accomplishes is to put the same idea in someone elses words. This can lead to further clarification or crystallization of an idea. Exposing as many facets of an idea as possible to the light of criticism and then attempt to return a light to the criticism is a good mechanism of progress.

 

I find it interesting that I share a software background with admello and have also read a number of books by J. Krishnamurti. I'm not spiritual and I found disagreement with and contradiction in many things he says. However, he had a way of stimulating my own thoughts and that is also what we are all doing here in this forum. Another word of praise for this forum is that it allows the thoughts of all persons interested in a subject to merge without super strict banning of thought experiments and personal theories. In at least one other website forum the thought police are extremely active and I think that unnecessarily constrains possibilities. But, of course, they have every right to manage their forum as they see fit.

You're making a common crackpot-like mistake of criticising the scientific understanding of something (time), while demonstrating that you don't understand it. Who treats time almost as if it has mass??? What does that even mean? Who treats it as an object with existence besides its measurement?

 

Phrases like "crackpot-like" are not productive to developing mutual understanding. Criticizingscientific understanding is what science does. It's not a religion. When you say "it's measurement" you are implying time is something independent of measurement. What, exactly, is that independent something?

 

 

You're also making a common philosopher mistake of coming up with a way to think about a concept that ignores all of the functionality of the existing definition.

 

On the contrary, I think, admello is focusing on the functionality of time and that functionality is a handy way to measure motion. If you are saying that the functionality of time is to measure time then we have a critter chasing it's tail.

Time is used to measure motion and motion is used to measure time. This can be a confusing potion. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

You dismissed the analogy to distance, but time is treated very much like distance in science. It involves the ordering of events, but it is also a metric where the time between events has consistent measurements. So yes, if you remove the "measurement" aspect of time, which is what gives it its definition in science, then you can say what you want about it (it only exists in the present or whatever)

 

"Or whatever" indicates that you have missed the other guy's point. Who said time "only exists in the present? I recall it being said that the present is timeless. If you look at the entire universe at once and don't focus on the pieces (what relativity is all about), where is the time? I don't recall anyone dismissing the anaology to distance. Who?

 

but you must realize that you've ignored everything that is useful about the concept of time in science,

No, that was not done.

 

and replaced it with some vague philosophical thoughts that might be interesting to think about or lead to new ideas, but are not useful like the scientific definition of time is.

I understand why you call it philosophy but I don't recall anything "vague" in the explanations. Exactly, what was vague and needs clarification?

Sure, but everything can act as a recorder of events. The tree remains on the forest floor, as an effect of it falling. There are atoms in a rock that only exist because they were made in a star that exploded. You can say "That star only exists in the past" but its existence is still indicated by the rock's present existence. Now you'll have to define what it means to be "real" in the past.

I think you might say "That star only exists in the past" but I would say "That star only existed in the past but it's energy still exists in the present but in different percentages of form and relative location".

 

 

Since this star, or this sound, no longer exists, can you meaningfully say that whether it happened or not doesn't matter?

No.

 

And if so, what does it mean that the rock, or the memory, is there now,

If the rock or memory is there then that indicates existence in the present.

 

if the events that caused it are dismissed?

That is a personal choice.

 

 

Or if not, in what sense is the past event not real?

 

In the sense that it no longer exists in the present in the same form as it did in the past.

Edited November 7, 2013 by machapungo

[Delta1212]

Saying the past doesn't exist in the present is like saying that ten feet away doesn't exist where I'm currently standing. It's true by definition, but you can't extrapolate to say that an object ten feet away doesn't really exist and that the entire concept of distance is all in my head.

 

Well, I mean, you could. It's actually just as feasible as time being all in your head, but most people who like the idea that time isn't real have a problem looking at distance the same way.

[machapungo]

Saying the past doesn't exist in the present is like saying that ten feet away doesn't exist where I'm currently standing. It's true by definition,

 

No, I don't think so!

The past is represented in the present by records that have a degree of persistence. Nothing persists forever except the total energy of the universe. The record could be written words, a memory, a fossil, rings in a tree trunk. Even though these records exist in the present, they were initially created by events that are not happening in the current configuration ( the "now") of the universe. The energy of the universe is eternal but it's configuration is not. Past, present, and future are all about configuration but only the universal energy configuration of the now exists in reality. Reality is constantly changing. There is no way to pin it down as it is always different than it was and will become different than it is..

The universal "now" is the configuration of the total energy of the universe but it cannot be statically defined because it is constantly changing via a continuum of motion.

[swansont]

No, I don't think so!

The past is represented in the present by records that have a degree of persistence. Nothing persists forever except the total energy of the universe. The record could be written words, a memory, a fossil, rings in a tree trunk. Even though these records exist in the present, they were initially created by events that are not happening in the current configuration ( the "now") of the universe. The energy of the universe is eternal but it's configuration is not. Past, present, and future are all about configuration but only the universal energy configuration of the now exists in reality. Reality is constantly changing. There is no way to pin it down as it is always different than it was and will become different than it is..

The universal "now" is the configuration of the total energy of the universe but it cannot be statically defined because it is constantly changing via a continuum of motion.

 

I don't understand the use of the words past, present, future, now, changing and persists without the context of time being a real phenomenon.