Random Thought About Time

**candlesnkittens** · 09-28-2011, 05:44 PM

So, I spent some time writing my thoughts down on what time is. I'm posting it just to get it out there. Sometimes I feel that if I don't share my thoughts they will never leave me.

Does time exist? I think time is materialistic. Man made. Who invented time? Man did. For without clocks and calendars, would we be aware of time? When I look at time, I see it as a tool to measure moments. But, what are moments? Are moments not time? There is no time in space. Earth has "time" because of its rotation. The Earth's rotation ages us. So, time is a tool used to measure aging. Large or small, it doesn't matter. So, aging exists. Time exists in our minds as a tool to measure aging. An imaginary chart to measure reality. So, does the 'now' exist or do we merely exist? Well, we say that "this is the now." Alright, but didn't the now just pass as you said that? If the now is continually passing, then how can we measure it? We can't! If we can't measure something, does it even exist? My guess is that we exist "now" simply because we exist. In order to be under less pressure, we need to stop depending on the idea of time so much. Instead, we need to view it as a tool to help plan things out that need to be planned out. But, to measure our existence constantly is to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. We need to simply see ourselves as existing and become comfortable with that.

**mozartus** · 09-28-2011, 05:55 PM

What time is it on the moon?

**OutOfPlace186** · 09-28-2011, 08:26 PM

I agree that time only exists as a tool of measurement. Time is manmade based on our earth's rotation and the ancient Mayans' perception.

**SirJac** · 09-28-2011, 11:38 PM

Saying time doen't exist without clocks is like saying space doesn't exist without a measuring stick.

**Bisclavret** · 09-29-2011, 11:09 AM

There's "time" (i.e. a subjective measure such as the human calendar systems) and then there's "time" (objectively removed from our of circle influence).

**RBM** · 09-29-2011, 11:39 AM

Time exists because it has to - as it brings order to chaos.

**Bisclavret** · 09-29-2011, 12:16 PM

	Originally Posted by RBM To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Time exists because it has to - as it brings order to chaos.

...and chaos to order, ad infinitum.

**N0c7urn3** · 10-01-2011, 01:34 AM

Our idea of time is a physical property of the universe (that it changes) perceived psychologically. Just as how our idea of space are physical properties of the universe (EM waves, density particle clusters, movement of particle clusters) are perceived psychologically (colour, objects, sound).

Saying that time exists is like saying colour exists. It exists insofar as we can perceive it. But it may not exist if the psychological ability to perceive it does not, even if the physical properties that would have caused that perception was still there.

**Nelwyn** · 10-02-2011, 12:07 PM

I go with: becoming is a more fundamental principle than time and space is. Thus, "(...) it can be put shortly by saying, that physical time expresses some features of the growth, but not the growth of the features." (Process and Reality by A.N. Whitehead:434) I see our perception of time as a kind of "backward looking" in this process of becoming, which is essential but not primary. It's more like a necessary feature of an actual entity, which is the basic entity in Whitehead's philosophy: everything is made up by them. His philosophy has an especially high potential giving a consistent picture of modern physics.

Unfortunately, a forum is not really a good place starting an introduction to Whitehead and I'm also very likely not the right person to give it anyway. But I highly recommend his stuff, even though he did a very good job writing as confusing as possible. I read a lot about "time" before I came across Whitehead and in my eyes he solved several (not all) of the problems I had with other approaches (see presentism, block universe, eternalist, cutting edge-stuff, or whatever they might call themselves).

**Ghostwheel** · 10-02-2011, 02:36 PM

Twenty years of sitting meditation, and I still can't break away from time.

For me, time still exists.

One day though....

**shortnsweet** · 10-02-2011, 03:22 PM

I think that time has to exist as long as matter exists. The word "time" is just a human word to describe something that was there.

**Distance** · 10-02-2011, 03:30 PM

Measuring time = fear of death

**clumsywordsmith** · 10-03-2011, 08:33 AM

The more I age the more interested I become in the relative nature of time. Not so much in the mathematical, space-travel-wormhole sense and all that (which I've always found interesting), but rather the way time flows faster the longer you've lived. I look at little kids and try to remember my earliest memories, ponder to myself just how long a year used to feel; remember the time when I was six and my parents told me I'd have to wait until I was nine before they gave me my first pocket knife, and thinking at the time just what an agonizingly long wait it would be. Endless. So far in the future I might as well forget about it entirely.

But now three years goes by so fast I hardly have time to stop and pause and look back at where I was and where I am now, at least not if I don't wish to risk being slapped in the face by the oncoming year. Sometimes I wonder to myself: I might still have a solid two-thirds of my life remaining, depending which side of the family my aging genes have aligned toward, but have I perhaps already lived the better half of it out time-wise?

**blm9161** · 10-03-2011, 04:43 PM

I realize that everyone and everything moves and we chose to call it time and mark it by calenders. This helps our materialist lives. We can feel the changes in the air the beginning and setting of the sun the cycle of the moon. Changes come it is how it is measured that makes "time".

**Grave** · 10-05-2011, 04:30 PM

I believe time does exist but to a certain extent. I believe that the man-made part about time is the measurements and numbers that signify time itself, but in reality I see time as not a "tool" but more of a "when." Time itself is the length from one moment to the other, but without a measurement we would be at a lost for words in how to describe this length.

**RBM** · 10-05-2011, 05:27 PM

	Originally Posted by Ghostwheel To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Twenty years of sitting meditation, and I still can't break away from time. For me, time still exists. One day though....

I've never heard of meditating to 'break away from time'. 'Breaking away from space', yes, to get to The Void ...

**Rac** · 10-07-2011, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by candlesnkittens
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So, I spent some time writing my thoughts down on what time is. I'm posting it just to get it out there. Sometimes I feel that if I don't share my thoughts they will never leave me.

Does time exist? I think time is materialistic. Man made. Who invented time? Man did. For without clocks and calendars, would we be aware of time? When I look at time, I see it as a tool to measure moments. But, what are moments? Are moments not time? There is no time in space. Earth has "time" because of its rotation. The Earth's rotation ages us. So, time is a tool used to measure aging. Large or small, it doesn't matter. So, aging exists. Time exists in our minds as a tool to measure aging. An imaginary chart to measure reality. So, does the 'now' exist or do we merely exist? Well, we say that "this is the now." Alright, but didn't the now just pass as you said that? If the now is continually passing, then how can we measure it? We can't! If we can't measure something, does it even exist? My guess is that we exist "now" simply because we exist. In order to be under less pressure, we need to stop depending on the idea of time so much. Instead, we need to view it as a tool to help plan things out that need to be planned out. But, to measure our existence constantly is to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. We need to simply see ourselves as existing and become comfortable with that.

The bolded statement reminded me of a pondering I had long long ago. It had to do with the interrelated nature between space/time, and how time is not a static constant, but depended upon the relative difference in motion between observers. Coupled along with how the universe is ever expanding at an accelerating rate. Perhaps time is merely a byproduct of motion? But how do you have motion without time? Is there some "point" which has an absolute zero velocity relative to all of the universe? The point at which all time is based upon? A point at which time does not exist/ .. happen?

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Daoist · 10-07-2011, 11:00 PM

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**BuShinJu** · 10-13-2011, 07:33 PM

My understanding is that time is a measure of the rate of change of things.

**RBM** · 10-13-2011, 07:55 PM

	Originally Posted by Daoist To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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To non-living objects that's true. But as best I can tell from the OP's random thoughts is the referenced position is that from a sentient being.

**chuot** · 12-17-2011, 02:41 AM

I agree with Grave, mostly.

I see nothingness as the distance between two events, and time as a created tool to measure.. well.. nothing in relation to bursts of "somethings" (note to self: sense, make some). But time also exist in a different sense, aside from a tool for measurement. It's not linear, nor a constant. My view of that concept of time can be summed up fairly well with the theory of relativity.

**SilentTruth** · 03-13-2012, 10:15 PM

Time is a illusion. The measurement of time is man's way of trying to understand it.

**Sk8ordude** · 03-13-2012, 10:43 PM

Time is the measure of causal process, in a way it is just a measure of point A to point B. I think that anything that moves short of instantaneously is subject to time, since everything yet discovered of measurable substance in the Universe is subject to the light speed governor, everything of physical substance flows relative to that.

I agree that time is an illusion to things bound by relativity.

**MysteriousGnome** · 03-14-2012, 12:37 AM

When I was at one point exploring the implications of time travel I realized as a side effect that time isn't anything like space. It seemed a lot more plausible that there is only state, and change of state. And we perceive time through changes in the state. At best time is a mathematical tool to help us formulate physics. Whether time exists as a physical manifestation in the same way that space does I'm not so sure.

**followthehippos** · 03-15-2012, 11:16 PM

Well, it takes a year for earth to revolve around the sun one time, it takes pluto something alone the order of 300+ years to revolve around the sun one time. I don't know if time exists, but I know that it always takes pluto 300+ as much 'time' than the earth to get around the sun. If time did not exist wouldn't existence just be one singular constant?

09-28-2011, 05:44 PM	#1
candlesnkittens New Member [01%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Sep 2011 Posts: 20	So, I spent some time writing my thoughts down on what time is. I'm posting it just to get it out there. Sometimes I feel that if I don't share my thoughts they will never leave me. Does time exist? I think time is materialistic. Man made. Who invented time? Man did. For without clocks and calendars, would we be aware of time? When I look at time, I see it as a tool to measure moments. But, what are moments? Are moments not time? There is no time in space. Earth has "time" because of its rotation. The Earth's rotation ages us. So, time is a tool used to measure aging. Large or small, it doesn't matter. So, aging exists. Time exists in our minds as a tool to measure aging. An imaginary chart to measure reality. So, does the 'now' exist or do we merely exist? Well, we say that "this is the now." Alright, but didn't the now just pass as you said that? If the now is continually passing, then how can we measure it? We can't! If we can't measure something, does it even exist? My guess is that we exist "now" simply because we exist. In order to be under less pressure, we need to stop depending on the idea of time so much. Instead, we need to view it as a tool to help plan things out that need to be planned out. But, to measure our existence constantly is to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. We need to simply see ourselves as existing and become comfortable with that.
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09-28-2011, 05:55 PM	#2
mozartus Member [09%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 370	What time is it on the moon?
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09-28-2011, 08:26 PM	#3
OutOfPlace186 Member [03%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 154	I agree that time only exists as a tool of measurement. Time is manmade based on our earth's rotation and the ancient Mayans' perception.
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09-28-2011, 11:38 PM	#4
SirJac Member [23%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 958	Saying time doen't exist without clocks is like saying space doesn't exist without a measuring stick.
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09-29-2011, 11:09 AM	#5
Bisclavret Veteran Member [62%] MBTI: INTP Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 2,511	There's "time" (i.e. a subjective measure such as the human calendar systems) and then there's "time" (objectively removed from our of circle influence). Last edited by Bisclavret; 09-29-2011 at 12:15 PM.
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09-29-2011, 11:39 AM	#6
RBM Core Member [162%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 6,501	Time exists because it has to - as it brings order to chaos.
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10-01-2011, 01:34 AM	#8
N0c7urn3 Member [17%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 691	Our idea of time is a physical property of the universe (that it changes) perceived psychologically. Just as how our idea of space are physical properties of the universe (EM waves, density particle clusters, movement of particle clusters) are perceived psychologically (colour, objects, sound). Saying that time exists is like saying colour exists. It exists insofar as we can perceive it. But it may not exist if the psychological ability to perceive it does not, even if the physical properties that would have caused that perception was still there.
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10-02-2011, 12:07 PM	#9
Nelwyn Member [05%] MBTI: IXTJ Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 231	I go with: becoming is a more fundamental principle than time and space is. Thus, "(...) it can be put shortly by saying, that physical time expresses some features of the growth, but not the growth of the features." (Process and Reality by A.N. Whitehead:434) I see our perception of time as a kind of "backward looking" in this process of becoming, which is essential but not primary. It's more like a necessary feature of an actual entity, which is the basic entity in Whitehead's philosophy: everything is made up by them. His philosophy has an especially high potential giving a consistent picture of modern physics. Unfortunately, a forum is not really a good place starting an introduction to Whitehead and I'm also very likely not the right person to give it anyway. But I highly recommend his stuff, even though he did a very good job writing as confusing as possible. I read a lot about "time" before I came across Whitehead and in my eyes he solved several (not all) of the problems I had with other approaches (see presentism, block universe, eternalist, cutting edge-stuff, or whatever they might call themselves).
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10-02-2011, 02:36 PM	#10
Ghostwheel Member [34%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Sep 2011 Posts: 1,367	Twenty years of sitting meditation, and I still can't break away from time. For me, time still exists. One day though....
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10-02-2011, 03:22 PM	#11
shortnsweet New Member [01%] MBTI: xxxx Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 48	I think that time has to exist as long as matter exists. The word "time" is just a human word to describe something that was there.
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10-02-2011, 03:30 PM	#12
Distance Core Member [411%] MBTI: eNTj Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 16,451	Measuring time = fear of death
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10-03-2011, 08:33 AM	#13
clumsywordsmith Member [07%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 315	The more I age the more interested I become in the relative nature of time. Not so much in the mathematical, space-travel-wormhole sense and all that (which I've always found interesting), but rather the way time flows faster the longer you've lived. I look at little kids and try to remember my earliest memories, ponder to myself just how long a year used to feel; remember the time when I was six and my parents told me I'd have to wait until I was nine before they gave me my first pocket knife, and thinking at the time just what an agonizingly long wait it would be. Endless. So far in the future I might as well forget about it entirely. But now three years goes by so fast I hardly have time to stop and pause and look back at where I was and where I am now, at least not if I don't wish to risk being slapped in the face by the oncoming year. Sometimes I wonder to myself: I might still have a solid two-thirds of my life remaining, depending which side of the family my aging genes have aligned toward, but have I perhaps already lived the better half of it out time-wise?
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10-03-2011, 04:43 PM	#14
blm9161 Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 182	I realize that everyone and everything moves and we chose to call it time and mark it by calenders. This helps our materialist lives. We can feel the changes in the air the beginning and setting of the sun the cycle of the moon. Changes come it is how it is measured that makes "time".
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10-05-2011, 04:30 PM	#15
Grave Member [07%] MBTI: INFP Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 305	I believe time does exist but to a certain extent. I believe that the man-made part about time is the measurements and numbers that signify time itself, but in reality I see time as not a "tool" but more of a "when." Time itself is the length from one moment to the other, but without a measurement we would be at a lost for words in how to describe this length.
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10-07-2011, 11:00 PM	#18
Daoist Veteran Member [77%] MBTI: INTP Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 3,093	To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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10-13-2011, 07:33 PM	#19
BuShinJu Member [43%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,734	My understanding is that time is a measure of the rate of change of things.
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12-17-2011, 02:41 AM	#21
chuot New Member [01%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 68	I agree with Grave, mostly. I see nothingness as the distance between two events, and time as a created tool to measure.. well.. nothing in relation to bursts of "somethings" (note to self: sense, make some). But time also exist in a different sense, aside from a tool for measurement. It's not linear, nor a constant. My view of that concept of time can be summed up fairly well with the theory of relativity.
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03-13-2012, 10:15 PM	#22
SilentTruth New Member [01%] MBTI: INTP Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 2	Time is a illusion. The measurement of time is man's way of trying to understand it.
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03-13-2012, 10:43 PM	#23
Sk8ordude Veteran Member [59%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 2,385	Time is the measure of causal process, in a way it is just a measure of point A to point B. I think that anything that moves short of instantaneously is subject to time, since everything yet discovered of measurable substance in the Universe is subject to the light speed governor, everything of physical substance flows relative to that. I agree that time is an illusion to things bound by relativity.
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03-14-2012, 12:37 AM	#24
MysteriousGnome Member [04%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 175	When I was at one point exploring the implications of time travel I realized as a side effect that time isn't anything like space. It seemed a lot more plausible that there is only state, and change of state. And we perceive time through changes in the state. At best time is a mathematical tool to help us formulate physics. Whether time exists as a physical manifestation in the same way that space does I'm not so sure.
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03-15-2012, 11:16 PM	#25
followthehippos Member [32%] MBTI: INTJ Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 1,287	Well, it takes a year for earth to revolve around the sun one time, it takes pluto something alone the order of 300+ years to revolve around the sun one time. I don't know if time exists, but I know that it always takes pluto 300+ as much 'time' than the earth to get around the sun. If time did not exist wouldn't existence just be one singular constant?
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