What really is time?

[Adodd]

This is a topic that I have been fascinated by since childhood. I began reading books about time and quantum physics at 12 or 13 trying to get an understanding. But nothing really explains to me what is the nature of time. Does it exist? Is it relative?  Are the presentists or eternalists on the right track or are they both deluded?

(Leo this topic could make a hell of a video)

[kinesin]

@Adodd  Time is a dimension of change, as viewed from the perspective of something which has the ability to write memories (the human brain).  Memory gives us the illusion of past, our brain's processing abilities give the illusion of future, but in 'reality' there is simply a continual process.  Only now exists.

[Adodd]

Im not saying your right or wrong, but To vague of an answer. Does this time happen idependent from these perspectives and events or does time need these to BE?

[Adodd]

@kinesin  would you say time moves in a straight line like so

[Tim R]

27 minutes ago, Adodd said:

but To vague of an answer

@Adodd Your question "what is time" is pretty damn vague too... it depends on what you mean by "time".

[kinesin]

@Adodd  Yeah, it's a vague answer.  If you'd asked me 5 years ago I would have written a whole thread's worth of paragraphs on it, but now I can't bring myself to do it.  Also I've had a beer, and that isn't conducive to proper explanations of the nature of time.

I will say though, I don't believe that time actually exists.  All measurements are byproducts of perception.

[LastThursday]

If it were possible to jump around in time or repeat events, then we could say that time exists as a one dimensional stream - a bit like jumping around a YouTube video and replaying the same bits of video.

Clearly, if you could jump around (time travel) then everything physically would have to be repeatable. All the positions of atoms in the universe and so on would have to be in exactly the same place to repeat the same events again.

Also, there would have to be an observer to observe the same events again. You could argue that an event could have many conscious observers. Let's make things simple and say you time travel backwards into your younger self (not someone else's consciousness) to yesterday at 9 am. The question now arises, do you still know that you've time travelled?

Say your memories are intact from yesterday at 9 am up until the point you time travelled a day later (now). That would mean the younger you of yesterday (after time travelling) would have knowledge of the future. This doesn't seem right, because the first time you experienced 9 am yesterday, you didn't have knowledge of the future. Therefore the first 9 am is different from the time travel 9 am.

So there are several ways to fix up the problem:

1. Time travel (backwards) wipes your memory of the future.

2. Consciousness is outside of time (not affected by time travel, and by extension separate from physical reality)

3. Time isn't linear, and you can never time travel back to the exact same state (arrangement of atoms etc, because your consciousness affects future arrangements)

4. Time doesn't exist at all and it's not possible to time travel

5. You did actually have sudden knowledge of the future the first time at 9 am, and knew that you'd time travelled. But because of this you don't know if this is the first time or the millionth time you've travelled.

Personally, I like number 4. But if materialism is wrong and there is only consciousness, then number 2 is the same as number 4.

Edited June 6, 2021 by LastThursday

[Windappreciator]

Time is the ability to order events without knowing all their causes.

You can see an event as generated by other events. If there were no time, perceiving this one event would inevitably lead to becoming aware of all its other events, of which there are infinite, ultimately leading to a break down of the illusion of a seperate self.

With time, you are able to view an event independent or unaware of all the other events before hand therefore keeping the finite illusion of a seperate self.

This happens by attributing that event to a certain "sense of time".

Because of time, looking at a boy catching a ball does not lead you right back to the big bang, because you simply intuitively attribute the boy catching a ball as seperate and therefore create a sense of a time period where that happened.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Windappreciator