Does time actually exist or is it just a human invention?

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Not quite. Particular things exist independent of sentient beings. I am talking about relationships that connect real particulars. Is the relationship real or is it a mental construct?

In a world without sentient beings trees exist. But do forests exist? Shoes exist but do pairs of shoes exist? Are relations observed or are they creations of the mind?

ruveyn

Why stop there? Why do trees exist? Isn't "tree" just a relationship among cells? Cells relationships among molecules? Although a higher order interpretation might seem clearer in the case of the tree, such a lumpy view need not be taken, and if you do take it, why doesn't it work for ecosystems?

My apologies; I am often poor with analogies. If the processes are real and the events are real, how would the relation between the two not be real?

well, I think the relations given to things observed can be regarded as human constructs, given that humans do abstractions of things they observe and experience.

What is a tree in the first place, how and why we tend to identify or name a tree from different objects, why a tree is called a tree rather than something else?
"t-h-r-e-e" what does that mean, how come a tree is also a 'arbre'?

If humans or sentient beings never existed would a tree be still a tree?

Would forests ever be beautiful if humans never existed?

Time through a tunnel topic

I am reading a very good book by Dan Falk entitled In Search of time. Ruveyn et al in this forum have raised interesting points i am now encountering in this timely tome.

I might also add that what ever the notion of time is, we humans have altered it by our presence, just as by existing we have changed space (notwithstanding gravity and other forces influencing matter and energy).