Atomsk wrote:
Time doesn't exist, clocks exist. Discuss
time is an aspect of change of state. If motion exists then time exists. If any property of things increase or diminish time exists. A clock is a harmonic oscillator which can be used to count the number of cycles between two events.
Time has a primordial quality. We can say sometimes that event A precedes event B (with regard to some Minkowsky frame of reference). So this primordial notion we have of first This then That is the beginning of our idea of time. If Event A exhibits some state of an object X and Event B exhibits another state of object X and Event A precedes Event B we say that first X had a state or property then (later) X had a different state or property (for example position, color, temperature ....).
We all acquire such a sense of temporal ordering before birth. Somewhere in the sixth month the fetus develops hearing (it can be shown six month fetuses respond to sound). Which means it can hear its mother's heart beating. Beat, beat, beat.... So we get a sense of ordering and duration. Order and duration is the essence of time and that is based on change and order. First This then That then This (again) then That (again). And so it goes. Every mammal on the planet has a sense of time based on events that actually occurred.
Hence time exists.
ruveyn