What is time

[ZNFYRH]

Quote by: Athena Nothing with mass can be excellerated without energy from some source doing so.

Correct. But what if the energy accelerating the mass is the mass itself? A jet in the air contains the force that moves it.

Quote by: Athena Doesn't the term speed of light, mean light is moving? If light stopped moving would anything exist?

To copy the words of someone from this forum... who actually copied them from a mutual teacher in our younger days... speed of light is misnamed. The full term is "speed of photons in vacuum." The speed of photons is constant.

[Kuldeep]

I wish I could contribute " what time is" based on space-time relationship as understood by Einestein and now by ZNFYRH here in this thread. Till I educate myself about this I can only say:

My first definition:
Time is the state of mind you are in at any moment !!!!

You might wonder what I am talking. Just wait I would tell you!!

Explanation:
Suppose I am enjoying very interesting documetary show. I was told that the show would be of three hours. Now while watching the show my mind was so much involved in the show that I was surprised to see that show is over and three hours have passed. This way these three hours look like a twinkling of eye for me. This a was one state of absolute compromising mind with the situation.

Now in the second state of worrying mind, I got a message my relative met with a accident at a place which would take me same three hours to reach even if, I try air travel. Every second of these three hours, I would feel like hours are passing.

Lapsing of three hours in second state of mind would be much much longer than the first state of mind. Rather, it would be difficult to compare.

Definition 2:
Time is sum of all present moments you pass on!

Explanation:
I do not think it is needed!!!

[ZNFYRH]

Kuldeep

To lighten things up a bit, consider this.

When watching a documentary, you're expanding your mind. What if, metaphysically speaking, you are literally dilating the space of your consciousness so that less time passes for you than for the rest of the world?

And if you can truly expand your mind with the right focus, you can effect physical reality.

[dreamer]

Quote by: Athena Zhavric's posts on logic are great. Now can we define time? There is a suggestion that our perception of time is a delusion? What do you think? The is this idea that time is another dimension? So we have the three dimensions of height, width, deepth or thickness, plus time. Whatever time is?

Because of Einstein, we often call time the fourth dimension, as did milton bradley .

[Jubloz]

Time is also a cultural construction; a tool for labeling a concept that we would otherwise have difficulty describing, much like using a ruler to measure distance. Physics aside, the perspectives on time vary, or even don't exist, from culture to culture. Arguably, a given group's entire world view likely differ, in part, according to how they incorporate time into their daily lives.

[Klio]

Time is an artificial construct that enables 3-dimensional beings to perceive that which we call "reality" -- another artificial construct.

[improvident]

Would it be accurate to say that when thinking of time.. the time perceived is longer than the time perceived.. when not thinking of time...

If thats true then does time even exist?..or is it only in your mind..Governed only by your perception of reality...

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: ZNFYRH Kuldeep To lighten things up a bit, consider this. When watching a documentary, you're expanding your mind. What if, metaphysically speaking, you are literally dilating the space of your consciousness so that less time passes for you than for the rest of the world? And if you can truly expand your mind with the right focus, you can effect physical reality.

Honestly I am not understanding fully what you mean by expanding mind and then relating it to space of consciousness. Finally, using physics more the space less time passing???? To my mind more space should pass more time !!! Am I so much duffer, I cannot understand what you want to convey???? Or, your expression is weak!!

Rather, I feel on the basis of your idea, I am concentrating on the documentary. I am narrowing my mind to only documentary and restricting my consciousness not to think of anything else but, the documtary. In your langauge, I am narrowing space of consciousness and time, because of which constant (3 hours) appears to be less.

Not believing your space and time , I would say due to my extreme interest in documentary, my sense of time feeling did not exist for those 3 hours, what to speak of feeling of lapsing of time at any rate !!!

Now, applying your analogy to second case, when I received information about accident of my relative! Again, I am concentrating on the idea of reaching the accident site and satisfying myself on having a look at the relative. But, due to my inability to reach next moment is not possible. Every second of those same three hours are becoming longer and longer for me. My consciousness space is still less but, I feel time lapses at very slow pace!!

In conclusion, till you or Enistein make me understand time /space relationship in simple language, I would continue to feel that

TIME IS RELATED TO ONE'S STATE OF MIND! MORE PEACEFUL IT IS, LESS FEELING OF PASSING TIME. LESS PEACEFUL, MORE FEELING OF PASSING TIME.

In other words less disturded mind would feel time passing quickly while; more disturbed mind would find time passing slowly.

Simple definition of time is the INTERVAL BETWEEN TWO REPEATING EVENTS ! It may be noted even, in the absence of conventional time, based on rotation and revolution of earth even that INTERVAL is also a FEELING of mind ONLY!

[ZNFYRH]

Kuldeep

Take a Kleenex and draw two dots, one one each end of the Kleenex.

Then hold your hand out and make a circle with your thumb and forefinger so that you make a circle the size of the thimble.

Lay the Kleenex on top of your hand.

The Kleenex is space.

When an object moves at almost-light speed, space "puckers" around it.

Take your finger and push the tissue into the circle created by your other hand. Notice that the two dots are now "closer" to each other?

Less distance means less time.

Metaphysically speaking, when your mind is intensely focused like that it is working faster. Space puckers around your mind and time passes faster for you.

[Athena]

Quote by: Kuldeep I wish I could contribute " what time is" based on space-time relationship as understood by Einestein and now by ZNFYRH here in this thread. Till I educate myself about this I can only say: My first definition: Time is the state of mind you are in at any moment !!!! You might wonder what I am talking. Just wait I would tell you!! Explanation: Suppose I am enjoying very interesting documetary show. I was told that the show would be of three hours. Now while watching the show my mind was so much involved in the show that I was surprised to see that show is over and three hours have passed. This way these three hours look like a twinkling of eye for me. This a was one state of absolute compromising mind with the situation. Now in the second state of worrying mind, I got a message my relative met with a accident at a place which would take me same three hours to reach even if, I try air travel. Every second of these three hours, I would feel like hours are passing. Lapsing of three hours in second state of mind would be much much longer than the first state of mind. Rather, it would be difficult to compare. Definition 2: Time is sum of all present moments you pass on! Explanation: I do not think it is needed!!!

Very nice explanation of how our perception of time can change.

[Captain Cardio]

For time as a fourth dimension, how would we relate the idea that our perception of time is only moving to the future with impressions in the mind of the past, and never moving toward the past with impressions in the mind of the future? Why do we only seem to experience life in one direction?

[dreamer]

perceiving reality as it really is, now thats time.

dreamer.

[Yasa]

Quote by: Captain Cardio For time as a fourth dimension, how would we relate the idea that our perception of time is only moving to the future with impressions in the mind of the past, and never moving toward the past with impressions in the mind of the future? Why do we only seem to experience life in one direction?

Reminds me of my sig. :)

[Kuldeep]

We always live in present. Every future moment is turning present and present is turning past. Other than present, when we think or try to imagine about future or try to recollect past; we actually mentally go into that situation, making both the moments future or past moments as present only.

That is why, I say we always live in present and earlier said TIME IS SUM TOTAL OF ALL PRESENTS !!!!

I talked about this somewhere else also. I asked, "Does 90 year old feel he has lived 9 times more than 10 year old boy???....no never, both feel they are living. It is different, they can mentally calculate, but actual feeling is that they just live and live in present only.

[ZNFYRH]

We don't live in the present... we are the present.

The "present" is nothing more than an instantaneous moment. There is no such thing as "now," because when you specify it it's already gone.

Time is a measure of how many instantaneous moments are between the current one and the one being referenced in the past.

[Jubloz]

Quote by: ZNFYRH We don't live in the present... we are the present. The "present" is nothing more than an instantaneous moment. There is no such thing as "now," because when you specify it it's already gone. Time is a measure of how many instantaneous moments are between the current one and the one being referenced in the past.

If anything, the concept of "now" is typically a misrepresentation that there is a "now". We've grown into the habit of living in time frames, such as "now" being anything from this day, this hour, or this minutes, yet "now" is just a cheap way of attempting to describe the feeling of being caught between past and present. What the word "now" would describe would be so instantaneous I wonder if it's even worth having a label for?

[Yasa]

Quote by: ZNFYRH We don't live in the present... we are the present. The "present" is nothing more than an instantaneous moment. There is no such thing as "now," because when you specify it it's already gone. Time is a measure of how many instantaneous moments are between the current one and the one being referenced in the past.

If you're familiar with Zeno's Paradoxes, I could argue how time can't be formed of infinite "nows" or "instants" because it would prove that motion is logically impossible. Perhaps time is quantized like photons and we are just "hopping" or teleporting to each segment.

[Captain Cardio]

If you're familiar with Zeno's Paradoxes, I could argue how time can't be formed of infinite "nows" or "instants" because it would prove that motion is logically impossible. Perhaps time is quantized like photons and we are just "hopping" or teleporting to each segment.

Yeah I think you're right there, one of the things with Zeno's paradox is that while infinity is a useful concept for math, it isn't necessarily a feature of our physical reality. So at some point those teeny tiny time slices reach an end to how teeny tiny they can be, and time progresses.

I always figured that the rate at which we experience time, depends on how fast our brain can process change. Like if your brain was more effecient at processing reality, you might experience time as if it were slower than other people experience it. Really since there is no way of comparing such an experience, that could be what happens.

A couple things I've noticed in my own life, is that when I watch something on TV or in a movie for the 2nd time, it seems to go faster than the first time I saw it. Like I see a movie, and I have a feeling for how long it is, but when I see the movie again it feels like it goes faster, and is shorter in total length, even though all the content is the same.

Also when I was a kid, time seemed to pass alot slower, a half hour car ride or a half hour tv show seemed to be lengthy events. Now either of those seems relatively quick. I chalk that up to maybe a child's mind is doing alot more learning, so the brain is clinging on to time(or the relative rate of change) more, in a sense, or processing it faster, so things seem to progress slower.

I spose the same reason for the seeing a movie the 1st time, and being a child could have time seemnig slower, is that the brain seems to make our consciousness experience things as being slower, if it is trying to intake more new information than normal.

Another thing is that we only experience time in relation to things.

Kind of an appropriate quote from Scott Adam's "God's Debris"

"How do you explain Zeno's Paradox?" "Imagine that everything in existence disappears and then reappears. How much time expires while everything is gone?" "How should I know? You're the one making up the example. How much?" "No time passes. It can't because time is a human concept of how things change compared to other things. If everything in the universe disappears, nothing exists to change compared to other things, so there is no time." "What if everything disappears except for me and my wristwatch?" I asked. "Then you would experience the passing of time in relation to yourself and to your watch. And when the rest of the universe reappeared you could check how much time had passed according to your watch. But the people in the rest of the universe would have experience no time while they were gone. To them, you instantly aged. Their time and your time were not the same because you experienced change and they did not. There is no universal time clock; time differs for every observer."

But I'm still hopelessly short of any kind of answer for why we experience time in only one direction.

[ZNFYRH]

Yasa

Each now is represented by the infinitesimal quantity... ::grins::

Seriously, though, it's pretty weird to think that even if you had to describe what you are seeing, you aren't really describing it.

You're describing how it looked when that visual input hit your brain.

In that sense, there is no "now."

[brisingr]

Time is a force that is in motion. Much like a river, it is something that flows. But also like a river, time can be stopped. The only thing is that hardly anybody knows how to stop time. Another theory is that time is in our imagination. It is controlled by how much we pay attention to things. For instance, people say that time flies when your having fun. Well, that is because you don't pay attention to time to begin with.