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

Community Blog
, ,
#41

Throwing in a quote

Time is a prime conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics, measured and malleable in relativity while assumed as background (and not an observable) in quantum mechanics.

#42

It sounds a bit like your going for the all things only exists through a human lens so isnt actually real. Sounds like your going off a totally different set of base definitions from everyone else.

Maybe its worth setting out what those definition are, as you don’t seen to consider time to be the same as others, or have different definitions.

There’s not much to say if that’s the case :smile:

(None of this was written “now” as that would require it to have all existed in the exact same moment)

#43

Pfff where to find time to read this long ass piece, its intresting though.

Perfect for on the bus to work, Thank for this brainfood.

#44

If the definition of time is introducing change, which is what you are basically arguing, then yes time is real.

#45

That’s the definition of time

The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.

a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future

#46

The issue I have with the block universe criticism is that it doesn’t really make time “not real”. It helps highlight that our experience of time is an illusion, but the events we experience are still separated by time. Using the DVD example, although all parts of a movie exist simultaneously on the DVD, the events in the movie are separated from each other in the DVD and can be causally connected to each other with different distances (time).

On a tangential note: If illusions are not real then how do they exist? The subjective experience of blue exists to me, in a very real way. The photons of light that cause me to experience this are probably not blue but yet I cannot escape what is right in front of me; blue. In the same regard, our perception of time is undoubtedly flawed, but there are real things going on in our brain that create this experience.

1 Like
#47

Imagine that we are incredibly far in the future, where the last atom has stopped vibrating. Is there still time?

1 Like
#48

So would you argue that because time has no physical manifestation (that we know of), it can never be proven real?

They’re more rhetorical questions, than anything. I was trying to make the argument that past, present and future are definite constructs, in that they’re relative to our interpretation of time.

#49

Now that’s an interesting thing to say.

Theoretically even after heat death of the Universe there’s still before and after states. Because the spacetime itself keeps on expanding. So while everything inside the universe reached energy equilibrium, the spacetime itself still “experiences” change. An in order for there to be change, there must be a way to separate before from after aka time.

#50

I haven’t kept up, is the latest theory that the universe is forever expanding? What about oscillating universe theory?

#51

The only experimental evidence we have so far, is that it’s expanding and keeps accelerating. AFAIK

#52

That’s interesting. I would assume that there would be steady expansion, but not increasing. What’s the theory?

#53

Expansion from big bang still going, eventually everything stops.

Expansion until a point followed by implosion.

Accelerating expansion.

#54

this one, we have experimental evidence

#55

Now go the opposite direction. Before the big bang, was there time? As I understand the big bang, there was nothing…until there was. Time is infinite? hard to wrap my mind around this stuff. I’m going back to my game now :wink:

#56

Even saying before Big Bang doesn’t make sense, because it’s the starting point for the laws of physics that govern our universe. Including time.

#57

That would imply there is also “no time”. Or the opposite of “time”.

#58
1 Like
#59

I thought about dark matter as an explanation. Thanks for posting that.

#60

Why would that imply that? It implies that there was a single point when it all started going. Both time and space.

In fact, let’s get deeper into this a bit. @anon46267848 you saying that time doesn’t exist kinda implies that space doesn’t exist. Do you think that space is real?

Our current scientific theories and models (backed by experimental evidence) suggest us that space and time are the same thing, spacetime.

You mentioned that there’s nothing that defines time physically, what defines space? Spacetime is the medium in which all the other things exist.