The Illusion of Time: What's Real? (1 Viewer)

[DrewPaul]

The Illusion of Time: What's Real?

From philosophers to physicists, the nature of time has always inspired curiosity, and few answers — in this essay, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of "Closer to Truth", explores several leading theories about time, it's place in space, and how it

www.space.com

Huw Price, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, claims that the three basic properties of time come not from the physical world but from our mental states: A present moment that is special; some kind of flow or passage; and an absolute direction.

"What physics gives us," Price said, "is the so-called 'block universe,' where time is just part of a four-dimensional space-time … and space-time itself is not fundamental but emerges out of some deeper structure."

"Time is out there," said Andreas Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of California, Davis. "It's called an external parameter — the independent parameter in the [classic] equation of motion. So, time — the time we know since we learned to tell time on a clock — seems to disappear when you study physics, until you get to relativity.

"The essence of relativity is that there is no absolute time, no absolute space. Everything is relative. When you try to discuss time in the context of the universe, you need the simple idea that you isolate part of the universe and call it your clock, and time evolution is only about the relationship between some parts of the universe and that thing you called your clock." [5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made]

It seems to me time always prods us forward. Things come into focus only briefly.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

Kurt Vonnegut from Slaughterhouse-Five


A literary day, it seems.

 

[Rexedgar]

Wow, man…..

 

[noonereal]

seems to me time always prods us forward. Things come into focus only briefly.

Not forward. What we perceive as time is change that could change in any order. We simply perceive it as directional, forward.

 

[AmNat]

The Illusion of Time: What's Real?

From philosophers to physicists, the nature of time has always inspired curiosity, and few answers — in this essay, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of "Closer to Truth", explores several leading theories about time, it's place in space, and how it

www.space.com

Huw Price, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, claims that the three basic properties of time come not from the physical world but from our mental states: A present moment that is special; some kind of flow or passage; and an absolute direction.

"What physics gives us," Price said, "is the so-called 'block universe,' where time is just part of a four-dimensional space-time … and space-time itself is not fundamental but emerges out of some deeper structure."

"Time is out there," said Andreas Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of California, Davis. "It's called an external parameter — the independent parameter in the [classic] equation of motion. So, time — the time we know since we learned to tell time on a clock — seems to disappear when you study physics, until you get to relativity.

"The essence of relativity is that there is no absolute time, no absolute space. Everything is relative. When you try to discuss time in the context of the universe, you need the simple idea that you isolate part of the universe and call it your clock, and time evolution is only about the relationship between some parts of the universe and that thing you called your clock." [5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made]

It seems to me time always prods us forward. Things come into focus only briefly.

I think it's silly to draw metaphysical conclusions out of mathematical formalisms.

We observe, with our lying eyes, that events follow each other in sequence. Relativity does nothing to challenge this, it just says that for events occurring far enough apart that they aren't in each other's light cones, there's no objective way within the formalism of relativity to say which happened first. That doesn't mean the question "what's happening in X distant location now" is metaphysically ill-defined, just that we can't know the answer to it within the limits of present scientific knowledge.

 

[Napoleon]

The Illusion of Time: What's Real?

From philosophers to physicists, the nature of time has always inspired curiosity, and few answers — in this essay, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of "Closer to Truth", explores several leading theories about time, it's place in space, and how it

www.space.com

Huw Price, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, claims that the three basic properties of time come not from the physical world but from our mental states: A present moment that is special; some kind of flow or passage; and an absolute direction.

"What physics gives us," Price said, "is the so-called 'block universe,' where time is just part of a four-dimensional space-time … and space-time itself is not fundamental but emerges out of some deeper structure."

"Time is out there," said Andreas Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of California, Davis. "It's called an external parameter — the independent parameter in the [classic] equation of motion. So, time — the time we know since we learned to tell time on a clock — seems to disappear when you study physics, until you get to relativity.

"The essence of relativity is that there is no absolute time, no absolute space. Everything is relative. When you try to discuss time in the context of the universe, you need the simple idea that you isolate part of the universe and call it your clock, and time evolution is only about the relationship between some parts of the universe and that thing you called your clock." [5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made]

It seems to me time always prods us forward. Things come into focus only briefly.

Time is relative to the observer. In truth we only perceive the past. Present or “now” is an illusion that becomes more apparent the greater the distance between the observer and the observed.

 

[DrewPaul]

Not forward. What we perceive as time is change that could change in any order. We simply perceive it as directional, forward.

Maybe it could...have you ever perceived time running backward?

 

[mrjurrs]

The Illusion of Time: What's Real?

From philosophers to physicists, the nature of time has always inspired curiosity, and few answers — in this essay, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of "Closer to Truth", explores several leading theories about time, it's place in space, and how it

www.space.com

Huw Price, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, claims that the three basic properties of time come not from the physical world but from our mental states: A present moment that is special; some kind of flow or passage; and an absolute direction.

"What physics gives us," Price said, "is the so-called 'block universe,' where time is just part of a four-dimensional space-time … and space-time itself is not fundamental but emerges out of some deeper structure."

"Time is out there," said Andreas Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of California, Davis. "It's called an external parameter — the independent parameter in the [classic] equation of motion. So, time — the time we know since we learned to tell time on a clock — seems to disappear when you study physics, until you get to relativity.

"The essence of relativity is that there is no absolute time, no absolute space. Everything is relative. When you try to discuss time in the context of the universe, you need the simple idea that you isolate part of the universe and call it your clock, and time evolution is only about the relationship between some parts of the universe and that thing you called your clock." [5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made]

It seems to me time always prods us forward. Things come into focus only briefly.

I think it is pretty clear that humans manipulate their environment to best fit their needs. Time included.

 

[DrewPaul]

I think it is pretty clear that humans manipulate their environment to best fit their needs. Time included.

How do human beings manipulate time? They schedule things in time buts that's not manipulation.

 

[mrjurrs]

How do human beings manipulate time? They schedule things in time buts that's not manipulation.

Who created years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds? Humans. The universe made its way for billions of years without a concept of time.

 

[DrewPaul]

Space-time, our universe our reality, is a created reality. It didn't always exist, it came into existence. Time was created to advance forward only. In video you can run things backward and watch a cracked egg reassemble but only in a video. In our reality we can't reassemble a broken egg. I don't believe our universe is base reality. Time and laws of physics don't apply in base reality.

 

[DrewPaul]

Who created years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds? Humans. The universe made its way for billions of years without a concept of time.

I grant you we divided time in to units of time. Time elapsed and flowed forward regardless of whether we measured it or divided it into days weeks and months.

 

[mrjurrs]

I grant you we divided time in to units of time. Time elapsed and flowed forward regardless of whether we measured it or divided it into days weeks and months.

So dividing something is not manipulating it?

 

[DrewPaul]

So dividing something is not manipulating it?

Dividing something physical yes. Do you think we actually divide time by saying a half hour passed? At best we measure it into arbitrary units. Time is also a function or property of space and the faster we travel through space, the slower we travel through time. If one travels the speed of light no time elapses for that person. It continues at the regular pace for those standing still.

 

[mrjurrs]

Dividing something physical yes. Do you think we actually divide time by saying a half hour passed? At best we measure it into arbitrary units. Time is also a function or property of space and the faster we travel through space, the slower we travel through time. If one travels the speed of light no time elapses for that person. It continues at the regular pace for those standing still.

Time is a word and concept created by humans, for humans. Completely different for other occupants of the planet.

 

[ModernDiogenes]

That’s like saying light exists because we can perceive it. It the< “If a tree falls in the first but no one was there to hear it dud it actually fall.”, thing.

We perceive the oasis age if time, but that fiesnt mean if we weren’t here to do so it wouldn’t actually still be passing.

Time is a thing. It exists. It doesn’t need us to mark its passage to be real.

 

[DrewPaul]

That’s like saying light exists because we can perceive it. It the< “If a tree falls in the first but no one was there to hear it dud it actually fall.”, thing.

We perceive the oasis age if time, but that fiesnt mean if we weren’t here to do so it wouldn’t actually still be passing.

Time is a thing. It exists. It doesn’t need us to mark its passage to be real.

The problems come with the idea it always existed...that's problematic.

 

[samiam5211]

We are never in the present; it takes a small amount of time for our brain to notice what happened.

The now we experience happened in the past.

 

[DrewPaul]

We are never in the present; it takes a small amount of time for our brain to notice what happened.

The now we experience happened in the past.

Not sure about that. The transition from present to past occurs very fast but that doesn't mean we didn't experience it. However, no sooner do we experience then were on the next now. Maybe : )

 

[samiam5211]

Not sure about that. The transition from present to past occurs very fast but that doesn't mean we didn't experience it. However, no sooner do we experience then were on the next now. Maybe : )

We aren't really experiencing it as it happens.

It might only be by 1 trillionth of a second, but anything we notice already happened.

 

[DrewPaul]

Time is a word and concept created by humans, for humans. Completely different for other occupants of the planet.
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I don't think its anymore a concept than space is a concept. Its a real property of the universe. If I call someone in Australia by their clocks its tomorrow but its not like they actually are in the future, or they could tell me future events.

 

[mrjurrs]

I don't think its anymore a concept than space is a concept. Its a real property of the universe. If I call someone in Australia by their clocks its tomorrow but its not like they actually are in the future, or they could tell me future events.

Exactly, we have manipulated time for our benefit.

 

[Sabre]

Time does not progress at a steady rate, trust me, the older you get the faster it goes.

 

[DrewPaul]

We aren't really experiencing it as it happens.

It might only be by 1 trillionth of a second, but anything we notice already happened.

Because then we're reflecting on it. Its hard to say though. If I see a baseball coming for my head the time of it hitting my head is in the future. As its hits my skull its the present, as it falls to the ground its the past. We could say the slightly past is our present even its not the actual present.

It gets even weirder. If someone is 3000 light years away is somehow seeing out planet, they would see the pyramids being built in their present.

 

[DrewPaul]

Exactly, we have manipulated time for our benefit.

I'd like to manipulate so I get 48 hours worth of activity in 24 hours...but its not going to happen.