Level1 Philosophicum: [Is time just a human construct?]

[anotherriddle]

This is the first philosophicum thread. The topic we are discussing is:

Is time just a human construct?

Anyone who has an interesting view point on this topic, please chime in! Please use the philosophical methods in this thread wherever possible: questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation

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The idea behind this thread is the following:

Level 1 Philosophikum

“We should have a place to discuss Ideas in a deep, rich and serious manner in a way, that we can explain our thoughts that is better accessible than in the Lounge, where every deep thought is bombarded with memes and anime lewd.”

Here is the companion thread for general discussions:
Level 1 Philosophicum

Here is the proposal and poll thread if you have an idea for the next topic:
Topic proposals and polls

[anotherriddle]

The discussion in the lounge up to this point. (for reference)

I want my time back

time

Is just a human construct.

Here have some:

time

Is just a human construct.

Ehm it’s not tho? There’s this thing called spacetime and causality principle. How we count time is arbitrary, but it’s like saying that spaces is a human construct, coz we use arbitrary units to measure it.

Maybe @anotherriddle can chime in, he’s the local physicist.

time

Is just a human construct.

Ehm it’s not tho? There’s this thing called spacetime and causality principle. How we count time is arbitrary, but it’s like saying that spaces is a human construct, coz we use arbitrary units to measure it.

Maybe @anotherriddle can chime in, he’s the local physicist.

Ehm it’s not tho?

It is until proven otherwise.

time

Is just a human construct.

Ehm it’s not tho? There’s this thing called spacetime and causality principle. How we count time is arbitrary, but it’s like saying that spaces is a human construct, coz we use arbitrary units to measure it.

Maybe @anotherriddle can chime in, he’s the local physicist.

uhmm … hi

@redgek I got you back here. However, I have a feeling this is more a dsicussion about semantics again. @anon46267848 In my opinion it is rather pointless though to say time is “Is just a human construct.” the same would apply to essentially every other physical phenomenon.

But we could have a nice discussion about it, should be interesting.

I might be up for it tomorrow

Fudge it, let’s go.

Is just a human construct

Like currency, time is something invented to make it easier for ourselves.

the same would apply to essentially every other physical phenomenon

No.
Gravity for instance is not a human construct.

Interesting. I have to break this down somehow. What makes you draw this distinction between gravity and time?

Let me ask a different question: Would you say spacial dimensions are also only a human construct?

Gravity is observable, measurable, we can easily verify and define gravity.

How do you do the same with time?

When I ask people this the answer I get is; because past -> present -> future, because x happened y amount of time ago, because we were at A and we’re now at B, and tomorrow we’ll be at C.
How do you then define the now?
No matter how you narrow it down to the Pico second there is no such thing.

There is only the now, nothing else, everything that happens is happening in “the now”.

okay, I will try to understand what you are saying. I think you are drawing the distinction at different levels of abstraction.

So, to try and dig a bit deeper:
Are you saying that measuring time by measuring the progress of a physical reaction, entropy or something similar does not make it a real thing right?

What do you need to know or be able to do, to comfortably say something is “a real thing”?

(Sorry if I can’t immediately respond. I am at a family gathering)

You can define time just as well as gravity…

Time can be measured by movement and it’s effect on matter… actually very similar to and related to gravity in many ways…

a real thing

You and I both know that is a big question, but let’s try.

What we can measure, observe and to some extent define.

I’m not opposed to things we don’t understand not being real, just gimme the proof that with a high certainty we can say its real and I’ll fold.

You and I both know that is a big question, but let’s try.

Absolutely!

What we can measure, observe and to some extent define.

How do you define measure? Obviously you do not count an atomic clock as measuring time, so what does a valid measurement need to do?

I’m not opposed to things we don’t understand not being real, just gimme the proof that with a high certainty we can say its real and I’ll fold.

No worries. Just to be clear, I don’t necessarily want to prove you wrong, I would like to understand where our definitions differ. You have a more unusual take on the concept of time and I very much would like to understand it better.

To remove you from the defensive position for a moment, let me try to write down a formal definition of what I think time is:

Time describes the process of the developments of events in a manner where there is a clear chain of cause and effect. The progress of time is the rate at which events through all laws of physics continue in a way that does not break causality (in the Einstein and Maxwell sense).

Going by this definition (in the hope it is consistent) I would say time is real because without it the laws of physics as we observe them would break, there would be no consistency. Yes, time is a heavy abstraction but it is real in the way that it’s effects are observable and the world would be different if it did not exist.

I don’t think it is coincidence that independent processes show a consistent, common chain of events. (For example when the progress of time is “measured” by different processes like a caesium clock and the progression of light in vacuum and it is consistent.) We could write off many processes as coincidence if we were so inclined but the chance of this being true would be extraordinarily small.

In case you think about the common direction of time and if there is such a thing. There are processes observed in physics that break time symmetry which means the process is not reversible and the “state” of the universe changes in a way that we can not go back to the previous state. (i.e. see time invariance and CPT symmetry)

Also, having a nice discussion with @anon46267848 abouzt whether time is a real thing.

If I might join in on that:

The semantik of “time” itself might doesnt help on this issue but the progression of a process to a defined goal requires a measurement of that progression. As long as the progression and goal is “real” so it is measurement.

[shane]

Actually its a Java class

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/package-summary.html

Copyright © 1993, 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. Also see the documentation redistribution policy.

[denstieg]

Gravity is observable, measurable, we can easily verify and define gravity.

How do you do the same with time?

I would think that by looking at the decay of uranium,

Around 99.284% of natural uranium’s mass is uranium-238, which has a half-life of 1.41×1017 seconds (4.468×109 years, or 4.468 billion years). … The decay of 238U to daughter isotopes is extensively used in radiometric dating, particularly for material older than ~ 1 million years.

Not so much the part of carbon dating but more in the sense of the decay, it strongly implays passage of something. Sure the word “time” is a construct but so is the person Eric Steegers i’m a collection of the world i saw around me as a child and my upbringing. But here i am typing. Sure the holografic univers (i realy like that btw) but thats for a other day to discus.

[denstieg]

A bit of the track, but you did put in some thoughts to get there

[shane]

Hey, who needs to think when we have the Oracle

[Baz]

I’m just wondering wheter the flow forward ‘in time’ as we measure it, is actually a seamless flow or rather ticks as ruled in quantum.

Other than that, ‘time’ is just our own comprehension of a flow we’ve observed.
With our limited senses and knowledge.

[shane]

How about this, since nothing can be smaller than a plank that means the universe must be composed of a natural number of planks because you cant have half a plank. Does that mean the universe itself is a discrete structure?

[denstieg]

this channel has a lovely lady presenter that also grabs your brain not just your…

little higher up the chain

this is quit deep, watched it 3 times to get a grip on it.

World Science Festival

a little collection.

[shane]

When it comes to time I always think of a logical system that is stateless vs having a state. This to me is the difference between regular expressions vs context sensitive systems on the Chomsky Hierarchy.

[denstieg]

That is what Einstein sugested, but that was more out of his hatred for chaos and his need for a static universe. He even said God doen’t roll dice. I think the plank distance wil find its match by smaller lenghts (its suposed to be the shortest lenght light can travel)

bit more of a normie explenation.
I do think its some sort of a discrete structure that ripples in gravity and unseen other forces.

[denstieg]

Wow that is a little mind bending, i trip up on the term grammar and its sort of binairy. Need to read and watch up on this.

[Baz]

Singularities aren’t ‘frozen’ in time even tho our calculations can’t comprehend what’s happening in them, yet they still flow through towards the future.

[denstieg]

Yeah the thing about time slowing down/stopping at the edge of a black hole is quit fasinating, and stil the hole is moving trough space and being influenced by the galaxy around it.

[denstieg]

But on topic Time is real, the perceived movement/passage is an ilusion. It is more the observation of happenings that gives the notion of time moving.

[Baz]

Time is a flow, but there might still be flow without time as we measure it.

[denstieg]

Most scientist present it as a “salami” thats just there and we see slices of it, but this hurts my brain to get this as i see the sun and the stars move at the horizon. The impresion of movement is so strong and the linkage of time is so ingrained in our psyche we can’t hardly decouple it.

[Baz]

Check the movie ‘Arrival’, it had a nice point in the extraterrestials having a different sense of time.

[anon46267848]

I would like to remind folks that when a statement is made, the burden of proof falls on the ones who are making the claim.

The claim is time is real.
A religious person claiming god is real would sometimes say “well you can’t prove god isn’t real”, and such a statement is ludicrous, because you can’t really prove in that sense that something isn’t real.

So I would invite the people who’ve already commented to present why time is real, the same way you would for the already mentioned gravity, for instance.

[anon46267848]

I would think that by looking at the decay of uranium,

I was also thinking of that yesterday, my counter argument would be that is no different from the other arguments. A change in the state of things does not prove time is real.