What is time

[Yasa]

Quote by: 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."

Yes, however if those infinitesimal quantities existed, motion could be considered impossible.

Also, you're right. It's like some cameras can absorb light for 30min straight and then make a photo. Our eyes absorb about 1/24 of a second of light every "instant" or something (according to my photographer buddy). It's truly crazy to think about time.

[ZNFYRH]

The highest capability of the human eye is roughly 60 frames per second.

Average human is 24 frames per second.

So yeah, if the world is what we observe, we are observing "jumps" in time.

[Captain Cardio]

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.

I think the reason time seems so forced to move, is that our very comprehension of time requires changes in our own brain. I don't think we could stop time. Being able to experience the world as if time is stopped, would require the components of our brain to still be moving, while the rest of the world is not. Everything that we do or think, requires the process of time to exist through.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Captain Cardio I think the reason time seems so forced to move, is that our very comprehension of time requires changes in our own brain. I don't think we could stop time. Being able to experience the world as if time is stopped, would require the components of our brain to still be moving, while the rest of the world is not. Everything that we do or think, requires the process of time to exist through.

Clearly Samantha Stevens could exclude whomever she desired from being affected by the spell, so thats not gonna fly.

[Captain Cardio]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Clearly Samantha Stevens could exclude whomever she desired from being affected by the spell, so thats not gonna fly.

I'm not sure what you mean by Samantha Stevens or a spell, did I not read something in the thread?

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Captain Cardio I'm not sure what you mean by Samantha Stevens or a spell, did I not read something in the thread?

Sorry, that was an attempt at humor, and a dated one at that.


Samantha Stevens was a character on a sitcom about witchcraft. ( Bewitched )

[Captain Cardio]

Sorry, that was an attempt at humor, and a dated one at that. Samantha Stevens was a character on a sitcom about witchcraft. ( Bewitched )

lol.. ah ok

Are we talking about time the physical time, the mental time, the scientific time, the song by Pink Floyd. I have read relations to all, which one was intended?

[Century 25]

Time.. time only has meaning if a sentient being is present to observe the changes that are.. for us.. "events" - Otherwise, what's the diff..? lol

Btw.. Since we are supposedly an "advanced" civilizations.. why aren't we using a calendar that is as good as the Mayans used..??

Much knowledge has been trashed over the eons humankind has prowled the earth.. knowing too much was deemed dangerous.. dangerous of course to those ignorant of the accrued knowledge.. and fearful of those using science beyond their knowing..

Too bad for us.. especially since it is a recurring theme throughout our history.. and is happening today.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: ZNFYRH We don't live in the present... we are the present

O.K. I agree, we are present and do not always live with the body in 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.

Additionally that measure of many instantaneous moments are also effected by the individual's mind feeling as explained earlier as well !!! Brisingr has also put it nicely in post #40 "Time Flies During Fun" !! I would add but "Time Gets Paralyised in Trouble seems as if IT is dead !!!!

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Captain Cardio 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.

I liked your this definition of Time in relation to change in brain processing information. But, I feel processing of reality by brain is not enough and only variable which matters. After processing, the effect of its result on mind and feeling thereby, would have greater effect on the perception of time as I have explained in my earlier posts about same 3 hrs watching movie and waiting for reaching hospital to see injured relative.

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.

Seeing movie second time, is a good example of brain's processing more information and making same time period shorter. Even as a Kid the processing might be slower while time period gets lengthened. But as a Kid your power of processing might be slower but interest in movie would matter. If your interest in watching movie would have been more than say reading. In spite of less processing capacity, the time period would have appeared shorter. For same if period of time if you would have allowed to play, your processing information would be truely fast and time would appear shorter.

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

Not only in relation to things but the types of things and their effect on your mind. If you like the situation and enjoy it, time appears shorter and we say time flies. But if the situation is trouble some, the time becomes longer as if it is pralysed. Although brain's processing information is quite fast in that case as well, still time would appear much longer.

So in the case of unconducive situation, your processing of information theory by the brain does not fit well with the feeling of time correctly.

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

This is so because we make a reference of a particular situation and relate our conception of time with that reference only.

Time moves in one direction only because age increases only and does not decrease !!!! (Just for fun's sake)

[Kuldeep]

"Present" and "Now" are two words which are not getting cleared even after lot of reasonable debate.

Quote by: ZNFYRH The highest capability of the human eye is roughly 60 frames per second. Average human is 24 frames per second. So yeah, if the world is what we observe, we are observing "jumps" in time.

ZNFYRH, right we are just hopping along mirco segments of time. But what is time still answeer !!!!


In that case time became a reality with variables like the observer, observing the change, reference point of change, effect of change on the conscious mind and also interest of the observer in the situation !!!

Who can frame an appropriate definition of time with so many variables ????

[Captain Cardio]

Not only in relation to things but the types of things and their effect on your mind. If you like the situation and enjoy it, time appears shorter and we say time flies. But if the situation is trouble some, the time becomes longer as if it is pralysed. Although brain's processing information is quite fast in that case as well, still time would appear much longer. So in the case of unconducive situation, your processing of information theory by the brain does not fit well with the feeling of time correctly.

I think you're right, the different experienced rates of time couldn't be all due to processing speed.

That gave me an idea though; I think alot of how we feel about length of time passed could be due to how much information our mind prioritizes and keeps. The feeling of time having passed quicker or slower, would be relative to how much information our brain records on average.

On a daily basis, 99% of the information we receive is dismissed as unimportant and immediately or soon forgotten.

In your case of waiting in the hospital for news of a loved one, our brain is going to be more activate and less complacent than it usually would be, recording more information. The brain would be very active considering things like "How long has it been? How much longer till we get news? What's going to happen if they don't make it?" Also the brain would be dealing with intense non-word feelings, that would lead to a less complacent mind set.

Because the mind was much more active during the experience, more information (even if its actually mundane) that could not as easily be forgotten (at least soon), was recorded. This information was more likely to add to the experience of more time passing because it wasn't routine. Since the mind was very active and not as much could be forgotten, time would seem to have passed slower.

By contrast: During a routine activity like a car ride home, alot of what we experience has been experienced several times before, and it gets mostly forgotten because our brain doesn't mark it as remember-worthy. So if the brain hasn't bothered to remember as much of the details of what happened, (because its 'same-old'), it could lead to a feeling of time having passed quicker. Really time passed at the same rate, but the mind just didn't record on to as much.

This would work for the movie length idea and a child's perception of time. For the movie, if we've seen it before, that information was already recorded the first time we saw it, and so the brain hasn't recorded as much new information the second time around. For a child's perception, they're brain is less likely to tune things out, as their mind is in a stage of constant learning and development.

If our brain functioned at 100% a few moments ago, (it was hyper-alert and took in every detail in its perception, say if you saw somebody holding a gun), time might have seemed to pass in slow motion, because information was recorded that it usually takes a longer period of time to accumulate. Every way that our mind isn't as active as that hyper-alertness in a situation, would make time seem to pass quicker than that extreme situation.

I spose another indication we have for the amount of time passed between two events, is the difference in perceived energy expended. An emergency hospital visit would be much more exhausting mentally than a routine car ride. Even if the event was actually the same length, the exhaustion might make the hospital visit seem longer because the person experiencing it feels fatigued as they usually would if much more time had passed.

It's like if two equal length events happen for you, but one of them had your brain taking in more information than the other. In the lazy event with less brain recording, less information is remembered. In the intense event with more brain recording, more information is remembered. Upon reflection, since you can get more information from the event with more brain recording, it seems like more happened, and therefore more time passed. Also, since you might feel more tired mentally, after more brain recording, you might have the physical feeling of more time having passed.

This is so because we make a reference of a particular situation and relate our conception of time with that reference only.

I'm not sure I understand this. If time wasn't actually moving forward, and it was just our perception, I would think we would be able to remember some things in the future and experience time backward, or as you put it, reference a particular situation, but in the future.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Captain Cardio I'm not sure I understand this. If time wasn't actually moving forward, and it was just our perception, I would think we would be able to remember some things in the future and experience time backward, or as you put it, reference a particular situation, but in the future.

Why not ! We do such back ward running of time on many occasions.

For example, my darling wife has gone to our son's place. I know she has to come back in 7 days. My eagerness in mind starts counting the meeting day right from the next day only : Now only 6 days left for meeting my wife, next day 5....then 4, 3, 2, 1 day....if my eagerness is more, I might back count up to even the moment I would meet her !!!

Do you mean time moving in negative direction that way ???

If yes then, I think that is possible.

[Captain Cardio]

Why not ! We do such back ward running of time on many occasions. For example, my darling wife has gone to our son's place. I know she has to come back in 7 days. My eagerness in mind starts counting the meeting day right from the next day only : Now only 6 days left for meeting my wife, next day 5....then 4, 3, 2, 1 day....if my eagerness is more, I might back count up to even the moment I would meet her !!! Do you mean time moving in negative direction that way ??? If yes then, I think that is possible.

The example that you've shown here is a prediction. It's your best guess. You can guess intelligently that your wife will be back in 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 days, but you aren't aware of that upcoming moment in the same way you would be if it had already happened. Like any predicted event, you don't have a 100% guarantee that she will be back in 7 days. She might return early or late due to unforseen circumstances.

If she had already returned, and you remembered that event, you would know you're wife arrived on time, what she wore when you saw her again, what present she brought back for you, and what she talked about. By predicting that she is coming back, you just have an unguaranteed, vague outline for things to come, not a memory of something solid and unchangable that has already happened.

Our experience of time only flows in one direction. There are qualities about the way we deal with the past that do not apply to the future and vice versa. We cannot remember how we are going to die or what the rest of our life will look like. We don't predict what happened in the past, like the vague ways we predict the future, we remember it with far more certainty.

The view of any given moment is different depending on when you look at it. The past, present and future impressions of any event are all different. When contemplating an event, before the event, we can only guess for most of the information that will be involved. During the event, we can scan or ask questions to find the information we want. After the event, we will be able to remember the information with much more certainty and detail.

It's true that our memories can leave out alot of information, and fade over time, but we can write things down or take photos. We can never take photos of the future, that we observe before they have happened.

[Technosoul]

In human terms we view time as age, the stages of growth represent time passage. We can study the rings of a tree and learn things about what was happening during the formation of each ring or growth. Each ring represents time passed. So it is more then mere perception, but recorded as data in life forms as they experience the effects of time. Time as distance (aka space) can be felt. as we become older time seems more like "dragging down" force then when we were children.

Earth time - the calendars and so forth, are of course based on the orbits of the earth around the sun, and by the orbits of the surface around it's own center axes. Motion moving around a center or relative stillness.

And so from one angle time is a measurment and form another angle time is a force. Ether a pushing force field or a pulling attraction force.
If time is to remain consistant it must have a souce to keep it "pushing" along otherwise the motion would loose momentum and vanish. Like a stream of water, you must have a source to keep adding water or that stream would dry up. Being that all the solar systems are moving apart form each other instead all moving in the same direction away from some tiny center the Big Bang idea is invalid as the origin of time-space because the Big Bang as a existing and substainable source is both illogical and no evidence is known of such an existing thing currently in operation.

We can trace a river and find the source, it exists now. But we cannot see the source of time-space and so the logical deduction is that it's source in this dimension is of another dimension.

[Captain Cardio]

And so from one angle time is a measurment and form another angle time is a force. Ether a pushing force field or a pulling attraction force.

I think to us it seems like a force, since we don't have the capacity to stop it. Our speed of our experience of time progressing is bound to how quickly we can process it. The only reason we experience time at a certain rate, is that the rate of change of our brain machery's that causes comprehension is bound to the rate of change of the universe. It's imaginable that if our brain was 10x as efficient at processing reality, we would experience time as if our worldly accepted 1 second, feels very slow, like 10 seconds. Or the opposite could be true, a brain that was 10x less efficient, would experience time happening 10x as fast.


Oceans of frozen time could exist between any two moments we experience, because if the world isn't moving, niether is our ability to sense that it has stopped. For all we know the actual way that time works is in jerky motions of really fast time, where thousands of years for us happens in a moment (as far as whatever is moving time along is concerned), and eons of non-time between moments.

Say the process of time progressing forward, is bound to a waterwheel in a paralell universe. Every time the wheel's master puts water through the wheel, the wheel turns and time in our universe progresses forward. The master could put water through the wheel at his leisure, because since our perception of time is bound within time itself, we can't tell the difference between when there is a steady supply and gaps in the water feed. For all we know the master died a moment ago and 50 trillion years passed in this parallel universe before another being came along and tried putting water through the wheel. The only way it would carry over to a percievable difference on our end, debatably, is if the wheel was destroyed, or somehow it was made impossible for the wheel or time to ever turn again. That would mean that our existence would discontinue, with us frozen in a moment for all eternity, but our consciousness would have effectively vanished from existence, since the progress of time we rely on to exist and think, would have forevered stopped.

[Kuldeep]

If we agree, time as the force then, we can define time as the type of force, which pulls future into present and pushes present into past. Mind reactions, perceptions, environment, consciuosness....so on and so forth can be considered as the variables affecting the virtual time. real time has to be constant fixed with respect to some perodic or harmonic change...e.g. motions of earth.

Secondly, how can we compare this force of time with other types of different forces like gavitational, magnetic, electric or electronic, wind and the like ?? How laws of forces from physics point of view apply to this new type of force (Time) ???

Using pushing and pulling of present into past and future into present respectively; is it possible to use the general formula of forcwe F=m.a??? What is mass ??? Acceleration, alright is there, which varies with the variables mentioned above. While, force is time which we agreed !!!!

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Century 25 Since we are supposedly an "advanced" civilizations.. why aren't we using a calendar that is as good as the Mayans used..??

Heh, sorry, we hitched our calendar to religious figure.

[Century 25]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Heh, sorry, we hitched our calendar to religious figure.

Yeah.. I know. That is the sorriest possible reason.