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pandabear
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18 Mar 2010, 11:35 am

I think that time is sometimes regarded as a collective fantasy. If most members of our species did not buy into the concept, then appointments would be impossible.

The invention of time has regimented our species to an extreme.



Awesomelyglorious
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18 Mar 2010, 11:51 am

I may be late to this, but there is a possible point and charitable interpretation to both the OP and twoshots.

Within the theory of relativity there is the notion that simultaneity is relative. What this means is that there is not an objective present or a clearly defined set of past and future events. So, while one can still say that clocks measure time, if one holds that the present and an objective past and present are necessary to the existence of a real time, then one can hold that time doesn't really exist. So, time doesn't exist, only clocks.

The same notion applies to twoshot's notion of the rulers. Length contraction also occurs, so long as movement is extremely different between points of reference. Who is to say which point of reference is correct though?



ruveyn
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18 Mar 2010, 12:16 pm

Atomsk wrote:
Time doesn't exist, clocks exist. Discuss


Time is a local aspect of the manifold in which we exist. There is no Cosmic Time. There is no Cosmic Clock. Newton's notion of absolute time is just plain wrong. Einstein came closer to understanding time.

We do not perceive time as such. We perceive various repetitive processes, such as the beating of the heart, the ticking of the clock, the cyclic repetitions of the heavens.

Time is not a substance. It is a manifestation of serial change in the world.

It is also relative and not-absolute.

ruveyn



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19 Mar 2010, 9:50 am

I would have to say:

a. clocks exist and how I wish they did not.

b. time exists, but only as a convention built into the universe we presently focus on to enable the software - same thing as the "clock" that sets the frequency for your computer. I THINK time does not exist outside the contect of the universe, and that in BIG REALITY we have random access, not sequence.



Sand
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19 Mar 2010, 9:58 am

Philologos wrote:
I would have to say:

a. clocks exist and how I wish they did not.

b. time exists, but only as a convention built into the universe we presently focus on to enable the software - same thing as the "clock" that sets the frequency for your computer. I THINK time does not exist outside the contect of the universe, and that in BIG REALITY we have random access, not sequence.


Aah yes. When when slip away from the universe things look quite different. How long have you been away?



pat2rome
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19 Mar 2010, 10:07 am

No, time exists. "In physics, the treatment of time is a central issue. It has been treated as a question of geometry. One can measure time and treat it as a geometrical dimension, such as length, and perform mathematical operations on it. It is a scalar quantity and, like length, mass, and charge, is usually listed in most physics books as a fundamental quantity. Time can be combined mathematically with other fundamental quantities to derive other concepts such as motion, energy and fields. Time is largely defined by its measurement in physics."


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sartresue
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19 Mar 2010, 11:34 am

ruveyn wrote:
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


Time to get a clock topic

Ruv said it best more than a year ago.

Time, as defined by Ruv, exists. But it is not an object we can feel in our hands. At some point some enterprising human realized this and invented/created a device for measuring (a visual rendering) it, probably for economic reasons or maybe he was just plian bored and wanted to know how many intervals had occured between when he had observed his awakening to when he last ate, or when he decided to go to bed (depending on the rising of the sun and moon). A clock is an object used to measure these intervals, and quite arbitrary, as has already been mentioned. I am surprised it has worked as well as it does, but the invention of lazer clocks makes for finer measurements of time as we know it.


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Asp-Z
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19 Mar 2010, 12:53 pm

Atomsk wrote:
Time doesn't exist, clocks exist. Discuss


Time is a system created by idiots to keep the morons from panicking. Read that in a book once.



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19 Mar 2010, 1:12 pm

time is reletive to indivuals. the concept of time is used as means or regulation. work in the day sleep at night



Philologos
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19 Mar 2010, 3:21 pm

Sand wrote:
Philologos wrote:
I would have to say:

a. clocks exist and how I wish they did not.

b. time exists, but only as a convention built into the universe we presently focus on to enable the software - same thing as the "clock" that sets the frequency for your computer. I THINK time does not exist outside the contect of the universe, and that in BIG REALITY we have random access, not sequence.


Aah yes. When when slip away from the universe things look quite different. How long have you been away?


Nay, nay, I have not ben away. [sobs]. Would I could. Afraid that here I do but reason - postulating conditions before, after, above, below, outside and without the univers is not data rich for those stuck here.

Accordingly those who talk in any context about the other are very divided as to whether time IS outside, whether time is the SAME outside. Anybody up on the question of time-like features in the string theory however many dimensions [I can't retain numbers] state before it collapses Big Bangishly into 3 plus time?



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19 Mar 2010, 4:31 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I may be late to this........

Time doesn't exist so it is impossible for you to be late.

Quote:
Within the theory of relativity ............

Hmmm, not sure if the theory of relativity actually works with a non-time concept, or that a non-time concept can really be justified from relativity, only thing that seems to be the issue regadting the theory of relativity is the nature of time rather than the existence.


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ruveyn
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19 Mar 2010, 4:35 pm

greenblue wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I may be late to this........

Time doesn't exist so it is impossible for you to be late.

Quote:
Within the theory of relativity ............

Hmmm, not sure if the theory of relativity actually works with a non-time concept, or that a non-time concept can really be justified from relativity, only thing that seems to be the issue regadting the theory of relativity is the nature of time rather than the existence.


In relativity time is an integral dimension of the continuum of physical existence. It most certainly exists. The fact that we can say event A occurs prior to event B indicates that time exists. In relativity, time is not absolute, particularly simulteneity.

ruveyn



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19 Mar 2010, 5:39 pm

ruveyn wrote:
In relativity time is an integral dimension of the continuum of physical existence. It most certainly exists. The fact that we can say event A occurs prior to event B indicates that time exists. In relativity, time is not absolute, particularly simulteneity.

ruveyn

Well, the issue that I see is that if simultaneity is relative then there are events that are either directly or indirectly simultaneous with both A and B, and possible a time C after B, and a time @ before A. This undercuts the ontological foundations of our system, as our system implicitly requires absolute simultaneity to say that things are before or after, and although we can approximately use these tools because our frame of reference is pretty similar, there isn't an absolute truth to what we say. We're not talking about an absolute time, but rather just the outcomes of looking at our particular frame of reference.



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19 Mar 2010, 8:21 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
In relativity time is an integral dimension of the continuum of physical existence. It most certainly exists. The fact that we can say event A occurs prior to event B indicates that time exists. In relativity, time is not absolute, particularly simulteneity.

ruveyn

Well, the issue that I see is that if simultaneity is relative then there are events that are either directly or indirectly simultaneous with both A and B, and possible a time C after B, and a time @ before A. This undercuts the ontological foundations of our system, as our system implicitly requires absolute simultaneity to say that things are before or after, and although we can approximately use these tools because our frame of reference is pretty similar, there isn't an absolute truth to what we say. We're not talking about an absolute time, but rather just the outcomes of looking at our particular frame of reference.


If A preceeds B and is timelike separated from B then it preceeds B in all frames of reference moving at constant velocity with respect to the given frame of reference. Precedence is an invariant propert of the pair A, B. Also the space-time separation between A and B is invariant under any Lorentz transformation.

ruveyn



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19 Mar 2010, 9:47 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
In relativity time is an integral dimension of the continuum of physical existence. It most certainly exists. The fact that we can say event A occurs prior to event B indicates that time exists. In relativity, time is not absolute, particularly simulteneity.

ruveyn

Well, the issue that I see is that if simultaneity is relative then there are events that are either directly or indirectly simultaneous with both A and B, and possible a time C after B, and a time @ before A. This undercuts the ontological foundations of our system, as our system implicitly requires absolute simultaneity to say that things are before or after, and although we can approximately use these tools because our frame of reference is pretty similar, there isn't an absolute truth to what we say. We're not talking about an absolute time, but rather just the outcomes of looking at our particular frame of reference.


If A preceeds B and is timelike separated from B then it preceeds B in all frames of reference moving at constant velocity with respect to the given frame of reference. Precedence is an invariant propert of the pair A, B. Also the space-time separation between A and B is invariant under any Lorentz transformation.

ruveyn

If the ordering of A, B, and C is relative to the frame of reference, with frame of reference R1 claiming that A, B, and C are simultaneous, and R2 saying that A -> B ->C and R3 saying C -> B -> A, then we have one state of affairs where A precedes B, and another where B precedes A, and a third where all is simultaneous. The issue is that each frame of reference will have its own claims to simultaneity. At R2 we will see A being simultaneous with B-t and at R3 we will see C being simultaneous with B+t. The issue is that if we hold to the transitivity of the present(an implicit assumption we use when talking about the ordering of events), then we would have to say that B-t = B+t. The issue is that B-t does not = B+t, which means that time, as we implicitly understand it, cannot work, simply because all of our temporal language is Newtonian.

I dunno, am I misunderstanding something? Are we talking past each other?



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20 Mar 2010, 1:01 am

How do we know clocks exisit?


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