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Does Time Exist?

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Re: Does Time Exist?

#11

Post by brimble »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #8
brimble wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I approach 40, a year feels about as long as a month did when I was elementary-school aged. I worry that if the current rate-of-increase continues, my last decade will feel weeks long.

I think the answer to this is to do more interesting things on a regular basis. If every weekend you do something different, then the month feels longer than when you stay home every weekend.

I've long been skeptical of this explanation. Later school ages (junior high and high school) were probably the most monotonous and regimented part of my life, period—I've certainly never experienced that much concentrated, intense boredom without any way to do anything about it—yet subjective time had only barely sped up from elementary school. It should then have slowed way down in college, but it didn't. It should have slowed down again a ton when I had kids, but it didn't. The change has been consistently in one direction, as has the acceleration of the effect.

Re: Does Time Exist?

#12

Post by handmodel »

encephalos wrote: post #2

I’ve been wondering a lot lately if it’s possible that time is felt differently (I guess moves ) for us on an individual level.

I think about this a lot too but I think it just has to do with the way memories are stored in the brain - not anything to do with time itself.

It's sorta handwavey but I've seen it explained that at age 40 a year represented 2.5% of your life while at age 10 2.5% of your life (especially your post baby life) may only be a few months.

And to put it in terms of some advice I do think time moves differently depending on how much new memories you are taking in. Vacations to me can seem to be very long while weeks where I settled into my normal routine flew by.

Re: Does Time Exist?

#13

Post by aidenn0 »

oldstrangers wrote: post #4

To me it's pretty intuitive that time isn't real (outside of being a concept). We just use time as an elaborate way to explain our movement through distances (and how fast or slow we cover those distances), that's about it. The twin paradox[1] does a good job of explaining this. There's no discernable difference between today and lets say, arbitrarily, 1984. The only difference is our movement through that spatial di…

Given that the speed of light directly relates time and distance in (to the best of our extremely precise measurements to date) an absolute manner, then if time doesn't exist, neither does distance.

Also, as TFA mentions any dismissal of time as a concept must also deal with thermodynamics.

Re: Does Time Exist?

#14

Post by AnimalMuppet »

If time doesn't exist, then... does space exist? If space exists, does motion exist?

It's pretty clear that things exist in different places, that things move, and that for certain events, there is a "before" and an "after". It's really hard to take those seriously and still say that time doesn't exist.

Perhaps a more interesting question is, which time exists? There's (at least so far) a rather fundamental difference between time in general relativity and time in quantum mechanics. If time exists, which time is it that exists?

Re: Does Time Exist?

#16

Post by why-el »

oldstrangers wrote: post #4

To me it's pretty intuitive that time isn't real (outside of being a concept). We just use time as an elaborate way to explain our movement through distances (and how fast or slow we cover those distances), that's about it. The twin paradox[1] does a good job of explaining this. There's no discernable difference between today and lets say, arbitrarily, 1984. The only difference is our movement through that spatial di…

In your rebuttal, you used a concept that necessarily assumes time ("how fast or slow", i.e. speed) to argue against the existence of time?

Re: Does Time Exist?

#18

Post by adventured »

Time doesn't exist as an independent physical objective entity, it exists only as a measurement. Sometimes we represent that measurement with physical objects, such as with clocks or watches or in our heads (I can hold my breath for N seconds). It's no different than your height existing as a measurement, or the distance from here to the wall existing a measurement, or the distance of 10 meters existing. There are physical entities that exist within the measured space of course, the measurement entity as such does not exist (only in your head, or similar (eg in a computer), as a calculation). It's also the same as three apples and three oranges sitting on the table, and you multiply them to get the number nine - there is no new independent physical entity of nine objects created, other than the calculation as represented temporarily in your brain space (ie you're not able to manifest new tangible entities into physical reality this way, you can merely calculate and store the count as a computer by rearrangement).

This is also why time travel backwards can't happen. There is no back there to go to, there is no saved record that some omnipotent entity is keeping track of. Backwards time travel requires either a fantasy premise of time (the mistaken notion that time is a separate, independent, physical thing and not a measurement), and or a god-like creature that has infinite energy to record the location of every unit of matter at every unit of time along with the ability to reassemble all of existence back to each save point - it gets comically silly fast for a rational person, you're better off believing in ghosts and the easter bunny.

Re: Does Time Exist?

#19

Post by oldstrangers »

aidenn0 wrote: post #13
oldstrangers wrote: post #4

To me it's pretty intuitive that time isn't real (outside of being a concept). We just use time as an elaborate way to explain our movement through distances (and how fast or slow we cover those distances), that's about it. The twin paradox[1] does a good job of explaining this. There's no discernable difference between today and lets say, arbitrarily, 1984. The only difference is our movement through that spatial di…

Given that the speed of light directly relates time and distance in (to the best of our extremely precise measurements to date) an absolute manner, then if time doesn't exist, neither does distance. Also, as TFA mentions any dismissal of time as a concept must also deal with thermodynamics.

The speed of light is still just the movement of something over a measured distance.

Re: Does Time Exist?

#20

Post by Filligree »

brimble wrote: post #11
TechBro8615 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer to this is to do more interesting things on a regular basis. If every weekend you do something different, then the month feels longer than when you stay home every weekend.

I've long been skeptical of this explanation. Later school ages (junior high and high school) were probably the most monotonous and regimented part of my life, period—I've certainly never experienced that much concentrated, intense boredom without any way to do anything about it—yet subjective time had only barely sped up from elementary school. It should then have slowed way down in college, but it didn't. It should…

I’m less interested in how long it feels in my memories, and more in how long it feels while I’m living it. If it makes any sense, the question is how to cram as much—consciousness, I guess?—as possible, into however many decades I get.
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