Tuesday, November 11, 2014

What is time? A secret - insubstantial and omnipotent. A prerequisite of the eternal world, a motion intermingled and fused with bodies existing and moving in space. But would there be time, if there were no motion? No motion, if there were no time? What a question! Is time a function of space? Or vice versa? Or are the two identical? An even bigger question! Time is active, by nature it is much like a verb, it both 'ripens' and 'brings forth.' And what does it bring forth? Change! Now is not then, here is not there - for in both cases motion lies in between.

~Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

2 comments:

MattTimeless said...

Hi Tomas,
I wrote a book on the subject of time, or rather, the possibility of timelessness,

The problem maybe with the question "what is time"?...
Re: "What IS time"

Let's be clear and logical here. Whether it is In fact valid or not,"What IS time" is a leading question.

It implies "time" is something that is proven to exist (as more than just a useful idea), and that therefore "it" "is" something.

If this assumption is incorrect, and this is not noticed from the outset, then all subsequent attempts to answer the false assumption will be vague, conflicting, self referential, speculation or conjecture,(this can be confirmed or not for oneself, by cross checking countless other posts on this topic).

If the assumption is correct, and time "is" something that has been proven to exist, then we should find out who has the proof and ask them "what is time?". But, because the question is being asked openly and randomly, this indicates that the question may be based on an assumption whose foundation is just assumed.

Therefore, I suggest a better, less leading question might be

'What do we actually observe?'

to this i would say we seem to observe

1- That matter exists, and,
2- that matter is moving and interacting.

From there, I think a sensible question to ask what I call "the key question of time", I.e...

"If matter JUST exists, moves, changes and interacts... Would this be enough to *mislead* us into "wrongly assuming", that there is a 'past', 'future' and thing called 'time' "?

if this is the case, logically, we are left with precisely what we actually see..

a universe full of constantly changing matter giving us the misunderstanding there may be a thing called time.

so, imo - (having written a very detailed book on the subject) -
'A Brief History of TIMELESSNESS'

'time' IS a useful "idea", and system of understanding and comparing examples of motion, (similar to "money" being a useful idea and system), but ,IMO, not something that actually IS a genuine phenomena.

Relativity does suggest, and it is confirmed, that any moving oscillator will be oscillating more slowly than expected, but this observation does not prove in any way that there is also an existing phenomena called "time", that exists, and is dilated, where objects are moving.

Logically, and scientifically, unless anyone can experimentally show otherwise, it thus seems that matter just exists and is moving and changing, not heading in to a "future", not leaving a "past record of all events" behind it, and therefore the answer to the question...

"What is time?"

'May' be ,

"Time, IS a useful idea and system for understanding and comparing examples of motion, but probably NOT also something that exists. Although most people seem to assume otherwise because they assume without any proof that there 'is' a 'past' and possibly a 'future', and assume without actually checking, that Einstein's Special Relativity, proves the existence of 'time', as opposed to just showing how relatively moving things are changing more slowly than expected".

Anyone interested in understanding the "theory of time" in more detail, please take a look at one of my powerpoint talks...

Matt Marsden

(auth 'A Brief History of Timelessness')
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I09XHMQ
Timelessness.co.uk

A couple of Videos...

YouTube: Timeless answers to Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO.
http://youtu.be/ii3gxxn2reA

" Time travel cant happen without 'the PAST' "
(complete with LEGO intro :)
http://youtu.be/pSJ8A-w78xM

Connie said...

Deep thoughts today! :)