does time exist?/(addition)light speed

um no, it doesn't erase the "past", it just simulates "time travel", its not all that different in practice we wouldn't know the difference were we put in that situation....

honestly i think the human race was very advanced before, like Atlantis and such, there is a map supposedly that is about 3000 years old that has a accurate map of the LAND mass of antartica. how does one explain this, if in fact this is a real map...i must investigate this further...

but not being able to affect the "past" is not proof of time it is again the proof of existence of time as a man made, pulled out of the air concept, nothing more... the best way to un make a smoothie is to get more fruit..

I'm not saying that things can be undone, and we can "time travel" all I'm saying is that time doesn't exist. there is nothing that uses time as a rule except us, nothing else puts it self in the confines of time....this is an instance were we are our own worst enemy....it doesn't change very much how we live: being concious that time isn't in control, but the events them selves that happen outside of our control...we think the clock rules us when in fact its SO much more complicated...yea some scientific theories are debunked or need modification, but that's part of science. we can still use time its handy that's for sure. we just need to realize that it is not the thing that is controling our life, the big problem is were pinning the blame or credit to something that doesn't actually exist.

Jare10, your entire argument for time, to sum it up, is: time=time, there for time exists...

independence doesn't exist, you wouldn't be here if the big bang didn't happen, I mean the one out in space, and the one your mom and dad did to make you. To say one is independent, is like looking at what is right in front of you, and nothing else...there are simply infinite ways to gain dependent knowledge.

Is that supposed to be the reply to my post? Wow..
It is you wanabe that wants to implement the term independence in superiority when I am saying that they does not have anything to do with eachother!

And thanks for summing up my argument, time=time... I hope I can have some proper replies in the future, seriously.

I'm sorry your 2d world is destroyed with every reply someone makes to your posts jarle10, but lets not start the insult game again* if you cant make any point other than attempting to insult someone, just don't bother.

honestly i think the human race was very advanced before, like Atlantis and such, there is a map supposedly that is about 3000 years old that has a accurate map of the LAND mass of antartica. how does one explain this, if in fact this is a real map...i must investigate this further...

Carbon dating utilizes circular reasoning, which I question. The assumption is that carbon has decayed at the same rate, in all environments, for all time. So they measure the rate of decay, and say that whatever article they're checking "must" be *so* old. The problem is, the measurement is based upon an assumption. This can't be trusted. Plus, scientists' funding is often based upon finds like these. I'd be very skeptical, and would like to see the scientific paper before I became excited. I don't consider myself sucseptible to the puerile "wonder" of "mysterious 'scientific' finds" such as these. How many times have "scientific" assumptions been over-turned and rejected?

but not being able to affect the "past" is not proof of time it is again the proof of existence of time as a man made, pulled out of the air concept, nothing more...

If you can't affect the past, then how IS it different from the present? The future? WHY can't you affect the past?

the best way to un make a smoothie is to get more fruit..

Are you serious? Do I need to ridicule this analogy, or will you just apologize for it?

MY COMMENTS IN BOLD BELOW:

I'm not saying that things can be undone, and we can "time travel" WHY CAN'T WE IF TIME DOESN'T EXIST??? all I'm saying is that time doesn't exist. there is nothing that uses time as a rule except us AND EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, nothing else puts it self in the confines of time....this is an instance were we are our own worst enemy....it doesn't change very much how we live: being concious that time isn't in control, but the events them selves that happen outside of our control...we think the clock rules us when in fact its SO much more complicated...yea some scientific theories are debunked or need modification, but that's part of science. we can still use time its handy that's for sure. we just need to realize that it is not the thing that is controling our life, the big problem is were pinning the blame or credit to something that doesn't actually exist.

Finally, wanabe, you said that "independence doesn't exist". Maybe. Then you must admit that objects are dependent upon others when they move, right? If this is true, one object cannot just move without affecting another. This sets a chain of events, ie., one event occuring prior to another event (call this a use of terminology, but the terms describe the concept we're discussing). Time is our way of explaining this concept. The CONCEPT is that one things must occur BEFORE another thing in order to affect it, and you may only see the effects a body has upon another AFTER the event has taken place. THINGS ARE DEPENDENT upon one another. You're right .... nothing is independent.

I knock a glass onto the floor and it shatters. I do not see any chain of events that leads to the glass picking itself up and putting itself back together SO That it never happened. When you come up with time travel let me know, because I do not think it is possible. Not only that time travel is just loops. It still goes in the same direction.

oh, whitetrshsoldier you were agreeing with me, rather long winded way of doing so, but thanks. Ridicule my analogies all you want, they get the point across....we cant effect the “past” because those events have already happened some things we can fix, (we can't undo ever) some we just cant do anything about, they are just outside our control.
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down the road the glass will eventually decompose due to being ground to bits by a series of events. There is the potential for it to go back to the earth to again be mined and turned into glass...there are a lot of events to witness, but feel free to watch them unfold.

I'm not saying we can undo events, time just doesn't exist...i cant come up with time travel because time doesn't exist...this is what I'm talking about everyone is so brain washed into thinking time is a physical thing, that we think we can do things with it physically, like time travel. Time does not pass, events happen....haller: your arguing on some tangent that i have agreed with.

I'm not saying we can undo events, time just doesn't exist...i cant come up with time travel because time doesn't exist...this is what I'm talking about everyone is so brain washed into thinking time is a physical thing, that we think we can do things with it physically, like time travel. Time does not pass, events happen....haller: your arguing on some tangent that i have agreed with.

Wanabe, if we're brainwashed, your brain-dead. QUIT SMOKING WEED, AND LAY OFF THE SHROOMS. We can't undo events because THEY HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED. They're done, IN THE PAST! The second law of thermodynamics speaks of it pretty well, I think. Do you believe in those laws? It states:
"The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium".

I'll give you a really, really simple example. When you open a can of coke, the carbon dioxide molecules in the can will expand into the room. They will NEVER AGAIN move back into the compressed space of the can unless forced. THEY MOVE FROM 1) ARTIFICIALLY COMPRESSED to 2) NATURALLY DISPERSED. Two different states, ONE DIRECTION, EVERY TIME. They can only act in this way because causality, and the LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE force them to.

The reason you can't affect the past is because it is done and over with. If time didn't exist, you could easily reach back and touch it.

"Time" is only our way of describing this concept of causality. I am not saying that seconds, hours, weeks, or years matter to the universe or anything but us. However ALL things happen RELATIVE to other things. This implies BEFORE and AFTER. This is what we call time.

where did i say we could affect the past? where where where show me.......i said exactly what you said ill quote myself then you.

wanabe-“we cant effect the “past” because those events have already happened”

whitetrshsoldier-“We can't undo events because THEY HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED.”

effect/undo is the only difference...you're agreeing with everything I'm saying, except your pretending(or just not reading) I'm saying the opposite.

please read the above quotes, I AM AGREEING WITH YOU. we are in agreement.

You said

....we cant effect the “past” because those events have already happened some things we can fix, (we can't undo ever) some we just cant do anything about, they are just outside our control.

You just said that we can not affect or undo the past because it already happened. Exactly. It happened on a plane of time. Past--->future equals time. we can not undo or even effect the past, so therefore time exists. I have previously tryed to mention the laws of thermodynamics, but to no avail.


If you agree than you agree that time exists.

this means time exists as an idea in our heads nothing more, which is what i said more or less in the opening post....time is not a physical thing...nobody here seems to be trying to understand anyone else everyone just wants to argue.

it can happen on a plane of time if you want to be stuck using time. but you should call it like it is and say a series of events. nothing happens because of time in happens because some out side force acted on it directly or indirectly.

listen to your own words when you say that no one is trying to understand anyone else. Perhaps what you are saying is what you are doing. You can not speak for me, I am just tired of repeating myself and never getting an answer.

Jarle10 was trying to say a series of event IS time. What part of that is confusing? I would rather say time which has four letters than Series of events which has fourteen.

All I am saying is time can be physical because it has properties. The laws of thermodynamics, which you still have not stated your opinion on.


Honestly, I do not mean to be ad hominum or anything, but I am tired of arguing a point in which the wisdom is refused to be seen.

A series of events is time, sure, ok, its the name we give a series of events. I understand that...time dose not have physical qualities because it is all in out heads...

as far as thermodynamics goes: wikipedia

The laws of thermodynamics, in principle, describe the specifics for the transport of heat and work in thermodynamic processes. Since their inception, however, these laws have become some of the most important in all of physics and other branches of science connected to thermodynamics.
There are generally considered to be four laws:
The zeroth law of thermodynamics, which underlies the definition of temperature.
The first law of thermodynamics, which mandates conservation of energy, and states in particular that heat is a form of energy.
The second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of the universe always increases, or (equivalently) that perpetual motion machines are impossible.
The third law of thermodynamics, which concerns the entropy of an object at absolute zero temperature, and implies that it is impossible to cool a system all the way to exactly absolute zero.

In reading on, time is mentioned (twice on the whole page) but an astute physicist knows it has nothing to do with time, but with outside forces acting on it.

!!!!!!!!!!!Time does not cause anything, because its only in our heads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is what i mean when i say time doesn't exist. i know ive said that before.

my opinon of thermodymics is that it is a valuable tool.

Try actually looking further.


Wikipedia-

Entropy is the only quantity in the physical sciences that "picks" a particular direction for time, sometimes called an arrow of time. As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of an isolated system can only increase or remain the same; it cannot decrease. Hence, from one perspective, entropy measurement is thought of as a kind of clock though measuring entropy does not accurately measure time. There is also the complication that, locally, entropy can decrease with time: living systems decrease their entropy by expenditure of energy at the expense of environmental entropy increase.

By contrast, all physical processes occurring at the microscopic level, such as mechanics, do not pick out an arrow of time. Going forward in time, an atom might move to the left, whereas going backward in time, the same atom might move to the right; the behavior of the atom is not qualitatively different in either case. In contrast, it would be an astronomically improbable event if a macroscopic amount of gas that originally filled a container evenly, spontaneously shrunk to occupy only half the container.

Certain subatomic interactions involving the weak nuclear force violate the conservation of parity, but only very rarely. According to the CPT theorem, this means they should also be time irreversible, and so establish an arrow of time. This however is not linked to the thermodynamic arrow of time, which is the main issue of this article, nor has it anything to do with our daily experience of time irreversibility
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The point is mute. Your not going to abolish time just by thinking it and I am not going to make it appear just by showing its properties. I have agreed with you in part and those things that you do not choose to call time is the definition of time in my book. It is a very real thing and denying it in my opinion is just as bad as not in your opinion. WE DO NOT KNOW if it does or does not exist physically. Let us just put it that way.

"WE DO NOT KNOW if it does or does not exist physically. Let us just put it that way." sure works for me.

I am new here and have not yet read every post in this thread ... but the concept of time is something I have some thoughts about. I must jump into the forum some where - so - this is it

Time ... exists in our heads (as someone here said) it is definitely a human experience. It is a function of dong a comparison between a past experience (memory) and a present experience.

All there is - is the present moment. A dynamically changing experience. And if we did not have the capability of memory - all we would know (fresh at each instant) is the here and now .. with no other reference point - we can not have an experience of time.

Q: Does 'time' exist?
A: Yes. But only as a human experience.

Q: Did time exist before humans existed?
A: No it did not.

There are two tricks to understand the answer to the question.

The first is to realizes that time is specifically a human experience - like sound. Like touch. Like taste. Like sight. Time does not exist until there is a human with perception and memory. The comparison of our current perception ... with our memory ... gives us our experience of what we call 'time'.

When we hear sound - the sound itself does not exist "out there" - our experience of sound is that it is the result of the transduction of what-we-perceive (waves etc..) via the sense of hearing (ears) into a human experience.

Let us trace the path.

The dog barks... which means air rushes through his throat (no sound yet) setting up vibrations (no sound yet) in the air which travel as a wave (alternate compressed air) to our ear drums (no sound yet) and that sets off impulses in our nerves which carry electrical signals to our brains (no sound yet) .. and somewhere somehow (we know not how) that soundless energy is then transduced into an existential experience that we humans have (NOW we have sound!).

The second 'trick' is in the definition of what it is to exist (to-exist) which defines an act (action) that a human experiences. Existence (to-exit) is also (as sound is) a human experience .. traduces to us by way of our senses. Without the involvement of our senses ... existence ... is only a theory and a contingent potentiality with no reality yet. It requires our human senses and the transduction of that into an existential human experience (we can call it observation as in the 'measurement problem' of quantum psychics) to have something ... to-exist.

Put the cat inside the box and ask the question "Does the cat exist inside the box?" and the answer is most definitely ... No.


!!!

WHY?

... because ... while we can predict that we will experience the cat again when the box is opened ... for the span of time in which we do not directly experience the cat ... the cat does not exist! Why? How can I say that???

Because existence is a condition that is defined by ... having a human experience.

Perhaps the cat IS in the box for the span of time that we can not see into the box to confirm that fact. Perhaps the cat was sent off into another dimension and only came back at the moment we re-open the box. Perhaps the cat fell through a trap door that we did not know about and when we open the box the cat is not there. Perhaps god performed a miracle and vanished the cat... the point is that the existence (to-exit) of the cat is predicated on our ... human experience ... of it. The box (blocking our senses) makes it so that we do not have an experience of the cat - no experience = no existence. It is simple if we use the words correctly.

To use the word 'exist' in any other way than to describe a human experience ... is a misuse. However ... we do this all the time due to the practical situation that it makes life easy. It is a theory that seems to work pretty well for us in daily life even if we are sometimes wrong.

We can also use instruments or thought to postulate the existence of something that we have no direct experience of - for example the obits of other planets postulated the existence of Pluto ... but until we actually observed it Pluto did not exist - the only thing that did exist was our theory that Pluto existed.

All we have to do is use the word 'exit' correctly.

Someone sez "I am going to the store." but gets hit by a car and never gets to the store. The reality is that he was never going to the store .. he was going out to get hit by a car (however he did not know that), But we could perhaps argue according to his own intention verses the final and real results.

For ANYTHING to exist - it must have a location. Which is another way of saying that it must be definable by its limitations. For anything to=exist that thing must be limited ... according to the capability of our senses. These limits (which are really according to our senses only) define its - location - from other things.

And the limitations of anything - are limitations only according to our own human sense perceptions ... and THAT fact pins it tightly and directly to - a human experience.

Our human sense perceptions can be augmented by instruments (telescopes, microscopes, math, what have you) but the key here again is that these instruments traduces to our senses - an experience! These instruments transduce something into our range of sense perception and by doing that it gives us an expereince.

Q: Does time - exist?
A: Yes. But only as a human experience.

Q: Did time exist before there were any humans? (after all there were other animals before humans)
A: Time IS a HUMAN experience.

That question can not be answered for two reasons (and it is not that we cant; find and answer - it is that no answer esists for that question - the question itself can not be asked).

What other animals experience ... I do not know. There is no way to transfer their animal expereince (sensnes /brain / etc) to me. While some of our senses are shared in physiological make up - the minds, memories, etc.. (the psychology) and MEANING oor any expereince - are far too dissimilar.

It is impossible for me to know the experience that even the closes animal (ape) might have of what I might call 'time'. It is also impossible for an ape to know my human experienced of time. The animal expereince and the human expereince can be like - but they can not be the same.

I would expect that higher animals do have an experience that can be likened to my own experience of 'time' - but - it is not a human experience they are having .. and 'time' is defined as a specifically human experience.

Which leads one to the next question...

Q: Can the past - be changed?

First off - this question is not legitimate. It is like asking "Can blue be up?" or "Can up be a solid?" ... it simple is apples and oranges.

BUT - in the sense intended for the question .. the answer is ... yes. The past does change. It changes often. It can 'change' depending upon the choices we make at every present moment.

What has been observed (now in memory) can definitly change in its causality. And the reality of anything is dependednnt upon its causality. A simle way to say this would be to say that the meaning of anything can change. Because casuality is entirely dependent upon (you guest it) a human expeeince of - meaning. What it MEANS to my human mind.

Q: But how can it change? when something that has happened psychically - seems to be done - accomplished - and unchangeable?

The answer to that question goes back to the fact that to-exist depends entirely upon a human experience and what the core of that experience is .. is what it means to us humans.

Both the past and the future - are contingent potentialities - which depend entirly upon the freedom of 'me' in the present moment (or the lack of that freedom).

If anyone is interested in how and why I say that the past can be changed ... I will explain that by a simple thought experiment involving a table and a falling line of dominoes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I invite objections.

-Raymond