Time

What are your thoughts on time?

I personally believe that the past and future do not exist at all. They are either just memories or hopeful imaginings. But they really arent REAL.

And time. In my eyes it is just a system of measurement, not a tangible governing force that some people seem to think that it is.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by SeveredNebula223

What are your thoughts on time?

I personally believe that the past and future do not exist at all. They are either just memories or hopeful imaginings. But they really arent REAL.

And time. In my eyes it is just a system of measurement, not a tangible governing force that some people seem to think that it is.

What do you think?

time is a man made creation.

it is helpful at times, to organize.

but i agree, the only time is now!

I wouldn't say that time is man made. Or, saying that time is man made is like saying that sound and smell are man made. Just as sound and smell are ways in which we interpreet the world, time is as well. However, to say that time is man made is rather misleading.

Does time have objective a priori extitence? Maybe, maybe not. It is a bit different from sound and smell in this way. We know, for example, that sound and smell are concepts that only make sense as artifacts of human perception. We can discuss time in a much broader and objective sense than we can discuss sound or smell. Additionally, while sound and smell are aspects or products of other things, time is not, or does not seem to be. Time looks like it is its own thing, we cannot find any external source for it as we can with sound and smell. We find that thing that is making the bad smell or the annoying sound and then alter that thing in order to alter the sound or the smell, we can do likewise with all of the other physical senses, viz., sight, taste, and touch. We cannot, however, find the thing that produces time.

This is a jump here I know.
It would seem that time, rather than being an artifact of human perception, is an artifact of motion. Imagine, if you will, a world in which there was no motion at all. There would be no physical senses at all (I would challenge anybody to come up with one that would exist in such a world) nothing would ever change or be altered in any way whatsoever. There would be no though or thinking as movement of chemical signals in the brain is required for though. The very idea of time would be meaningless in a world without movement.

time is most definatley man made.

do you see a big clock in the stars? no... i sure dont.


time is relative.

What is time? I really don't know how I'd answer that question. I believe that time has gone faster since I've gotten older. Time, I feel, goes very, very fast in Japan (of course, I'm living in a huge metropolis).I think the future does exist. It'll come before you know it.

the future is merely an idea. you are never in the future.

it is still now, always has been, always will be.

To quote (and paraphrase as little as possible) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance. This is a bit when John and the narrator are sitting in a bar talking, the narrator is talking with his son Chris and his friend John. I have cut out most of where John and Chris say something.

"'Modern man has his ghosts. The laws of physics and of logic, the number system, the princible of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts, we believe in them so thouroghly they seem real.
For example, it is perfectly natural to assume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity.
So when did it start? Has it always existed?
What I am driving at, is the notion that before the beginning of earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed.
Sitting there having no mass of it's own, no energy of it's own, not in anyones mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere- this law of gravity still existed.
If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don't know what something has to do to be nonexistant. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistance there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistance that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute it did have. And yet it is still "common sense" to believe that it existed.'
John says, 'I guess I'll just have to think about it'
Well. I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
And what that means is that the law of gravity exists nowhere except in peoples heads.'"

Ok that took my time.

Blessings

Sebbi

Gravity, smells, tastes, etc. all affect the physical environment. Time however is an idea. Its not something that moves like the clock leads us to believe. It is peoples ideas of organizing things, synchronizing the world. It is not a governing force. It cant be. The future and past are not real, because like Fractual said, you are never in the future nor past. You are always now. Its based on your perception.

Time is a manmade law, not a fact.

Time is basically a measurement of speed. Speed is the rate of locomotion from point A to point B. So speed is something that affects the physical because it places you in different positions. It affects where you are physically. Time however, is just used to measure that rate. Lets say you wanted to move two feet forward. It there is no elapsed "time". It is just how fast or slow you closed the distance between those two points.

"Time" doesnt move. We do.

ANd about past or future. Lets say you wanted to go "into the future" five minutes from now. So you waited until the five minutes was up. Now,you would not be able to say that you are now in the future because you arent. And you arent in the future in relation to five minutes ago because that point is no longer there.

Im not saying time is bad, because it is a pretty good measuring tool, but once people think that it governs their lives, thats where problems can arise.

Just some thoughts.

Originally Posted by Sebbi

To quote (and paraphrase as little as possible) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance. This is a bit when John and the narrator are sitting in a bar talking, the narrator is talking with his son Chris and his friend John. I have cut out most of where John and Chris say something.

"'Modern man has his ghosts. The laws of physics and of logic, the number system, the princible of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts, we believe in them so thouroghly they seem real.
For example, it is perfectly natural to assume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity.
So when did it start? Has it always existed?
What I am driving at, is the notion that before the beginning of earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed.
Sitting there having no mass of it's own, no energy of it's own, not in anyones mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere- this law of gravity still existed.
If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don't know what something has to do to be nonexistant. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistance there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistance that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute it did have. And yet it is still "common sense" to believe that it existed.'
John says, 'I guess I'll just have to think about it'
Well. I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
And what that means is that the law of gravity exists nowhere except in peoples heads.'"

Ok that took my time.

Blessings

Sebbi

interesting!