does time exist?/(addition)light speed

"Cause and effect is really a gross over simplification. for any cause there are *infinite* effects, for any effect there are *infinite* causes...there is *no boundary between cause and effect*, this is why time does not exist, there is *no real separation between the two*. or should I say infinite*..... “event” is ambiguous, because it encompass all things, it is part of infinity, by calling it a single event we have already *wrongly* *attempted* to take the infinity out of it, or it out of infinity, (which ever you understand better)...we cant separate one event from another because all events are part of the whole, of infinity. The “first” cause is still effecting everything, and its effects are still growing upon everything, while everything is also growing."

This is such circular illogic that I hardly know where to start... but I will (Call me a masochist. I bow to Jarle for his incredible patience!)

"Cause and effect are not bound by time"

Please give me an example of a cause/effect not bound by time?

“event” is ambiguous, because it encompasses all things"

It (an event) only becomes ambiguous if you eliminate the dimension of time which designates when it occurred relative to other events!

"We can't separate one event from another because all events are part of the whole"

Well, I'm sorry to hear that you can't separate one event from another, but I must say, you express yourself very well for someone suffering from an advanced stage of Alzheimer's disease!

"The “first” cause is still effecting everything, and its effects are still growing upon everything, while everything is also growing."

Without time, there is no "first cause" (and vice versa).

ok........ come back when you take the effort to read the whole thread.

any event, time does not exist.

that's why "first" was in quotes.

it is possible to have a society which uses time, but does not recognize it as anything more than what it is, a made up concept, this hypothetical society would not use time in any scientific calculations)

In my study of Mediterranean cosmogonies .. it is clear that they did not use (and had no real knowledge of) our current mechanical concept of time.

Everything was measured by repeating cycles (Lunar months). Even tho according to our mechanical-time days are longer or shorter - for them the new day began at sunset and was divided into a few parts. The length of each hour depended upon the season. Cycles and ... cycles of cycles Time was measured by harvest, floods, moon, stars, birth, and who was he current king.

Perhaps we would all have been better off if the man who invented the first real mechanical clock - had been killed for it

Dear wanabe ...

I hear ya that time has no real existence ... and in a view that is true. That particular view discounts the fact that we humans do actually experience time (I claim it is totally a human experience). And as my current boss sez (he is Spanish) ... "Das OK." your perspective has value.

So in that view - you are absolutely right! Time itself - does not exist - in the same way a table or chair or even the universe exists. We say it is not material and has no physical properties yet we treat it as if it does (thanks to Newton and DeCartes!)

And .. I hear ya that events as isolated from the BIG total event - do not exist. But it is all in what perspective is being used.

It is all a difference of perspective. And one of the problems of talking philosophy is shifting perspectives (one person using one perspective and another using another perspective).

Now .. I would suggest that the perspective you are using when you say that time does not exist .. is a perspective which assume it to be an object or at least have an objective existence apart from any human experience. That view is quite Newtonian ... you do realize.

That perspective assumes that time existed before any human existed. The big bang took place, things cooled, dinosaurs walked the earth... and then so-many-years later along comes humans and we humans step into the already running stream of time. Again - how Newtonian,

I claim (here we go..) that that perspective .. that theory .. is faulty .. yet don't jump to the conclusion that I have adopted any other usual contrary theory.

I know well that that big bang, and proof of dinosaurs, and erosion, continents shifts etc.. all have proof .. but I think we are reading into these ... the wrong theory.

We consistently take the wrong perspective just because the mechanical concept of time existing as an objective reality - is such a subconscious habit - it sticks to our subconscious like glue.

Q:What is next?

I have no time tonight .. but I would like to present some thoughts ... I would like to prove that time has no beginning and has no end. You yourself can readily accept this in the sense that you say time does not exist at all.

In order to crawl out of our pit .. is so darn hard .. that we need to take steps and can not jump right to the final conclusion right away ... or else it does nothing to enlighten us (we know .. but do not understand). We do not get that "Ah Ha!" feeling.

I would like to present two though experiments .. the first examining if there can be a beginning of time (supposedly with the big bang) and secondly as to if we can change the past - and is so - what is it that changes.

Both experiments indicate that time .. is a human experience .. and it flows from the present moment. Past and future are both contingent upon the present moment.

From there .. I might move to current quantum ideas that the catalyst for contingency is - thought - and the 'measurement problem' where reality is not solidified until it is observed. But again - do not automatically assume that I subscribe to the new age concept that we all just think up our reality.

But I am not sure knowing that (that thought has somehow something to do with shaping reality) does us any good without blowing apart other ideas which stick to us like glue. We need that "Ah Ha!" which arrives when it all becomes clear. Only the Ah Ha! does us good.

Of course - when we get it - we become the odd ball in a sea of popularly held beliefs.

Now I have to get to bed. Forums can be addicting and a real detriment to sleep

-DeMeriden

"ok..... come back when you take the effort to read the whole thread."

Well, it was torture but I did read it all - quickly though so as to diminish the agony. (But since time does not exist, I must have only imagined I read it quickly. ) Having read it, I can see that your premise has been discredited but you refuse to acknowledge it. Whenever you are asked to explain an irrational statement you've made in support of your thesis, you ignore the question, e.g., the question I asked you above, "Please give me an example of a cause/effect not bound by time?"

So, if you take your own advice that you gave above, i.e., actually read this entire thread, you may realize (this is probably a long shot) that you've made it futile to continue this debate, because, as I said, whenever your arguments are overturned, you refuse to admit it.

In order to measure anything, measure time, measure length, measure displacement in water, we have to define what is being measured.What is being measured may be an 'event', a walking stick, a boat, and these are all conceptualised as separate entities because that is the way we think. We abstract certain attributes from the chaotic flow of existence and brighten the group of attributes into an entity such as a boat , or a walking stick, or a pizza pie.

Language is instrumental in the process of lighting up selected perceptions so that they become conceptualised events such as narrative happenings in one's life, or tangible things like boats or pizza pies.Language as in verb tenses can add precision to attributes so that they are measured as to their place in sequences of other events.

Time is a concept to do with measuring sequence.It is a fallacy that time exists other than as a concept.There is no time's arrow other than as a concept. There is no flow of time other than as aconcept. Concepts do however exist. Please see Popper's '3 Worlds' of existence.

Separate events do exist as anything else exists, that is, because we say so, and measure the entities accordingly. This is what consciousness is, it is a brightening into existence of primal chaos.

Dear Blinda ...

You say things very well ... you have had training? majored in philosophy somewhere?


And I want to say to everyone that I am so thrilled to have stumbled into this forum. You -all- are so though filled. My brain gets a real work out here. (one, two, one, two, stretch, breath, relax)

=DeMeriden

How about this ....

Time has no independent existence apart from an experience of it. Time is relative to the observer.

Very non-Newtonian.

I fall back onto the belief that time (like sound and sight) is a mental experience and a framework in which our senses transduce and present .. exterior 'events' to consciousness .. as sequential.

I would suggest that the sequential-ness is due to the limitations of our senses and to our own tendency to isolate some particular experience in the stream as important to us and so we mentally mark it as an event within the stream.

I think I am going to settle on that for a bit.

-DeMeriden

Felix-“Please give me an example of a cause/effect not bound by time?”...even though I answered this before, in your skimming of the entire thread, rather than reading it, I guess you over looked it. any way... wanabe- “[ANY EVENT], time does not exist” if you want to see where I wrote this before, hit (ctrl+f) on your key board and type, in the little box that comes up: “any event, time does not exist.” according to my “time” stamp, its “Wed Mar 25, 2009 8:30 pm”. hope that helps, since it hurts you so much, to read about ideas that may conflict with your own.

Time is not a factor in reading any of that, although your watch may say otherwise, it is merely how your brain processes the information it's taking in...

do you really think that the universe works off of our clock, off of a time system we made up? That's about as optimistic, and egotistical a “logic” as: the sun rotates around the earth.

wanabe, I mistakenly thought you had left out the word "in" in that sentence, i.e., I thought you meant to say, "in any event, time does not exist." In any event , there is no event in this physical space-time continuum we inhabit in which time does not play an integral part, or if you prefer, in which what we experience as time does not play an integral role. In order for an event to occur, it must be preceded by other events (presuming it wasn't the very first event that occurred in our universe). That is, any and all events are "bound by time," the time that started with the creation of our space-time continuum and will end when it ceases to exist. If you are a realist, time started with the creation of our universe. If you are an idealist, it started when man became self conscious. In either case, it exists.

So I will repeat my question, "Give me an example of an event (a.k.a., a cause/effect) not bound by time. That is, describe such an event to me. Thank you.

DeMeriden said: "Time has no independent existence apart from an experience of it."

But that may also be true of space - and reality too for that matter.

See what happens when you skim!

Ok, lets start with the “first” event. (there always was/is probability, so there was no first event, but ill humor you) the big bang, all the universe was created in this event, and has been expanding ever since....did the big bang stop? NO! Its still happening! All events are part of each other, there isn't some wall that separates events, though many think there is, and they call this wall: time.

All other events are merely branches of the “original”, though the universe, is at the very lest, dicotic. other minor explosions (events), add to the explosion and go on to make branches of their own...there is no time. So again, I assert ANY EVENT IS NOT BOUND BY TIME.

And don't worry, just as the universe didn't begin, it won't end either, merely change form.

Your argument is purely semantic, wanabe, but you refuse to see that.

"All events are part of each other, there isn't some wall that separates events, though many think there is, and they call this wall: time."

Obviously all events are connected. Time does not (cannot) divide events, it is simply a means to discern and measure the distance between them, when a specific event happened in relation to other events.

You said earlier, "The “first” cause is still effecting everything, and its effects are still growing upon everything..."

In a universe where there is no time, there would be no reason for the "first" cause/event to lead to anything at all. It's a static universe, there is no passage of time, and therefore sequential nuclear/chemical processes cannot occur and nothing ever changes there. Does that sound like the universe we inhabit?

Has anyone else here seen the latest pictures of the underwater structure off of the coast of Japan? and if so - does anyone else here realize the impact this has upon our discussion here? (The concept of time as independent and mechanical which Darwin's theory utilizes - can be severely questioned).

-DeMeriden

denying the reality of time is like denying the reality of space. how else can men relate their activities without employing the dimension of time? existence as we know it happens within the dimension of time and space and none can exist without the other. we cannot conceive of space without time neither can we conceive of time without space. in the absence of time, it would be meaningless to talk about such things as new and old as these concepts are given meaning by the aspect of time.

hmmm...
has the universe always just been? or did it happen?
these are integral to whether time exists or not. if the universe has always just been (and will never end) then time is possibly not real. also time is just something that we humans use to map things as they happen. just like we discovered electricity could the possibility that we wouldn't have discovered time? could everything just beand we just perceive that things happen in a sequence, but really everything happened at once? sorry to use 'happened' so much especially as if time is not real, then nothing 'happened' in our sense of the world.

interesting

Thank you, apoya, for your concise summary of my point.

"denying the reality of time is like denying the reality of space."

Yes, perhaps wanabe would like to claim that space doesn't exist either? The Universe (capital 'U') is one big complex energy field made up of various frequencies, some denser than others. We call the distances between denser wave lengths "space" but it is simply a sensory delusion.

"has the universe always just been? or did it happen? these are integral to whether time exists or not.

I distinguish between the Universe [capital 'U'], which may be infinite, eternal and thus timeless, and the universe(s) [small 'u'], such as the one we inhabit, that are finite space-time continuums, i.e., they come and go (contract/expand), are born and die. Wanabe seems to want to make our universe timeless but words alone won't do it.