Does time exist?

G

Gelsemium

Temporal Novice
For me there is no more fascinating concept than time, but if we think of it can we really conclude that is exists? I mean, we see the succession of events that we catalog by hours, days, months and years, but at the same time what is time? Also, given the existence of time or succession of events, how can we jump between them?

 
For me there is no more fascinating concept than time, but if we think of it can we really conclude that is exists? I mean, we see the succession of events that we catalog by hours, days, months and years, but at the same time what is time? Also, given the existence of time or succession of events, how can we jump between them?
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Well, some believe it exists all at once and it's our own brains sorting it out into measurements (time intervals).

 
I've gone back and forth on this issue. I go from believing it is just something that's in our heads to believing its very real. Either way, the idea that you can manipulate it is the idea I really enjoy playing round with.

 
I believe time exists. It is always pressing on me to get more done in the day before it runs out. I do not know about traveling back and forth in though. As much as I would want to go back and change some of my choices, I know my past choices have given me present day joys.

 
I don't think that time really exists. There are just different stages that we go through everyday.

Time is really just an invention that humans invented to keep things sorted out and measure better activities.

 
Time is a human perception nothing more. Time itself does not exist. Man created the concept of time to keep track of the seasons so that they knew when to plant and harvest and other activities especially religious ones. It was also a means of travel. 1 hour towards the sun gets you here so to speak. It is purely a man made concept.

 
Time has to exist though. Sure, it's not something physical that we can touch, or feel, or gather and divide out, but it is something that we can effectively calculate as happening. As Kimberlyd said above, it's something that's man made to gauge when to harvest and a means of travel.That alone proves that time is real because the seasons are cyclical. Plants grow, die, go through a season of snow (usually), and grow again and we can accurately time it to when we can. We can gauge our own growth, others growth, and see its passages in the erosion of the planet.

We might not always get it right and calculate it right within our minds, but the human mind can only do so much with what information we're given.

 
BAKA

Time exist. These are the stupid questions human do when they can't understand the relativity..

Anyways, the definition of time is 100% alright.

Time exist because matter exist and space exist. After years of hard thinking about these concepts, i've concluded that time exist inclusive when it doesn't exist, because it's a "dimension" (No, not a dimension you're thinking but a dimension of quantifiacation of moments.) So it can take any value.

Do you know why minutes repeat each our? Why hours repeat each day and month every year? Because time isn't "the time" but it is "times". I mean, time, actually, is the relation of all matter in a gravity field. The existence of what we think is a continue-time is because our brains and bodies are part of the same gravitational-space-time field. Time is just perceived as our body matter do, and the existene of the speed of light, when it is measured it is the same because we measure it.

 
Time is a human perception nothing more. Time itself does not exist. It is purely a man made concept.
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And so we run an experiment to test your hypothesis.Acceleration, momentum and kinetic energy all have a time component in the maths that we use to calculate their values. The hypothesis is that "time is purely a man made concept." If that's the case we can ignore the time signatures in the above values and proceed to the experiment with that in mind.

We (well not exactly "we" - let's make that "you") climb to the roof of a ten story building and jump. During your 120 foot fall you tell yourself that time does not exist therefore your momentum, acceleration and kinetic energy do not exist. When you make contact with the concrete below you should encounter no problem, yes?

 
I am not a scientist, but I do recognize that science has made amazing advances and allowed us to reach another level of knowledge. The issue for me with the situation you describe Darby is that we would jump of the building and crash down regardless of the existence of time, acceleration and so on, it's just a succession of events, a catalog we humans put on the succession of events.

 
Time is certainly a weird scientific concept. It's something we cannot see or touch like light or a substance. It's not something that we can detect per se, such as radiation, particles, or ions. It's only something that we can measure. And unlike other measurements such as weight, length, mass, etc., there is nothing physical that we are measuring. It seems somewhat of an abstract concept - a measurement of the sequence of events that we experience and perceive. I draw a blank as to other measurements in science that are as unique in this regard. Maybe that is part of the reason it captures so much of our imagination - because it is tricky to grasp in the way we grasp other ideas. Perhaps saying that time doesn't exist is akin to saying that meters or joules don't exist. I don't know - Darby can set me straight if I am wrong!

 
And so we run an experiment to test your hypothesis.Acceleration, momentum and kinetic energy all have a time component in the maths that we use to calculate their values. The hypothesis is that "time is purely a man made concept." If that's the case we can ignore the time signatures in the above values and proceed to the experiment with that in mind.We (well not exactly "we" - let's make that "you") climb to the roof of a ten story building and jump. During your 120 foot fall you tell yourself that time does not exist therefore your momentum, acceleration and kinetic energy do not exist. When you make contact with the concrete below you should encounter no problem, yes?
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You need to stop being so rude, Darby. ;) RMT

 
That is the concept though. We as humans have to add a value to everything in order for us to perceive and understand things. So man kind created time, measurements, dates.... etc. There was a moment in history when these things were not acknowledge and yet life still existed, seasons changed.... Time itself was created by man to further understand and "calculate" those events, that does not mean it exist.

The falling from the tower idea, does time determine whether or not you hit the ground? No. Does it effect any aspect of how you hit the ground. No. All it does is gives a person the ability to calculate and understand the event, nothing more. That does not mean it truly exist outside of human perception.

 
The falling from the tower idea, does time determine whether or not you hit the ground? No. Does it effect any aspect of how you hit the ground. No. All it does is gives a person the ability to calculate and understand the event, nothing more. That does not mean it truly exist outside of human perception.
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Therefore you should have no problem with taking the, excuse the intentional pun, "leap of faith."You propose that time is a man-made concept. In the equation for kinetic energy

K = 1/2 mv^2

"v" is velocity and is given in terms of some unit of linear displacement (length) per unit of time (v = dx/dt).

If time is a man-made fiction the equation must state that kinetic energy is one half the square of the mass times zero...which is, of course, zero. No kinetic energy.

If kinetic energy is zero why don't you point your nose down from the roof and take the ten story leap of faith?

 
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Tme certainly exists, as well as space. Space and time are basically inseparable and one is needed for the other; consider this analogy of the Polo Mint sweet/candy. The hole in the middle of the sweet/candy is necessary for the existence of the mint. A polo mint sweet/candy without a hole is NOT a polo mint/swett/candy. Space cannot exist without time; space exists because time exists and vice-versa. I must add, this is my understanding, i.e. that space and time are both intertwined.

 
Mathematics, computations, equations... these are all man made concepts. They are meant for us to understand the world around us, but they in fact have no existence except to beings of higher thought (humans, aliens... take your pick). Animals do not use these concepts. They only know... if they run fast enough they will eat that day. Time and all other forms of calculation was created by man as a means to keep track and to understand things... but in a universe sense, they don't actually exist. Nothing works on a time schedule except us.

 
I've traveled into the past. No, maybe it's Deja vu. No, most likely it's just that, often, we think in similar ways until a better description/explanation is introduced.

What am I talking about? This is very similar to what I posted, the very first time I posted here.

Time doesn't exist. It is a construct of the human mind. That's what I thought was correct. I had discussed it with people I worked with and some agreed and some didn't care.

When I posted here, time was explained to me in a way I had not considered. I was both right and wrong. I now better understand that time, the time that orders and defines an event, is an integral part of the universe and existence itself. The "measure" of time that is required for our brains to accept the reality around us, is the construct of the human mind. It, the mind...Us... needs the measurement of time. Before WE began measuring time, as kimberlyd stated...

There was a moment in history when these things were not acknowledge and yet life still existed, seasons changed.... Time itself was created by man to further understand and "calculate" those events, that does not mean it exist.
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... seasons changed, the universe existed and we were mostly oblivious to why. Our concept of measuring time began to allow us to begin to understand the concept...Why?...It was the beginning of us realizing that "order" mattered. The seasons always change and we determined that planting in the spring gave a summer for growth but planting in the fall meant no crops. That is the time we use every day.The universe's time is more of a "definition". Falling from a tower...why does time matter...how does it come into play. If I actually do understand it correctly, the time/duration of your fall matters greatly. Falling from a 1 foot tall tower takes lets say 1 sec. Not much time to build up forces that will matter. Might still hurt, but not too much. Then falling from a 1000 ft tall tower takes much more time and allows for gravity to pull longer against you allowing for your acceleration to increase, maybe to terminal velocity, then the formula, K = 1/2 mv^2, and the time factor,"t", in the, "v = dx/dt", variable matters very much. It's gonna hurt...a lot.

Whether or not you "measure" the difference in the times doesn't mean it won't hurt more. Time IS a factor.

So, that's my simplified example of why time does exist.

It's the "way" we measure time that is our own construct and subject to variation should we choose.

kimberlyd, if you have ever read my first post you would see that I agree, somewhat, with you but, I was offered a better perspective on my understanding. An animal's ability to "conceive" time is a whole different matter for discussion.

 
An animal's ability to "conceive" time is a whole different matter for discussion.
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Indeed and that of insects. Have you ever tried to swat a fly, and wonder why it is so hard to do so? It has been proposed that the fly's perception of "time" is different than that of us humans. I have posted somewhere in this forum an experiment/research that explores this idea.

 
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