Is Time Just an Idea?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Steve3007
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Steve3007 »

Answer to this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345904#p345904
That post was an answer to this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345897#p345897
Tamminen wrote:To avoid confusion, this is indeed the relativistic Doppler effect, but not time dilation. Time dilation is the same whether those two observers recede or approach if their relative velocity is the same, which can be seen in my geometrical proof a few posts ago. Just turn the triangle upside down. I also suggest that @creation takes a good look at that proof to get an answer to the question of how one can make a 5 year trip in 3 years. Needs some insight into the principle of relativity though. And remember the constancy of light speed.
I appreciate what you're saying and have said. I agree that in order to critique a subject one needs to have some idea of what it says and why it says it - the foundations of what it says. Otherwise (to use an analogy with building a house that I posted in a different topic) one thinks that other people are proposing that the roof of a house can levitate in the air with no means of support from any lower storeys and foundations. And one naturally mocks them for that proposition because one hasn't bothered to notice the presence of those foundations.

But my point in that post was to re-iterate, by example, what I said in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345704#p345704

A large element of the long, long argument here simply stems from not clearly distinguishing that which is directly observed and that which is logically concluded from those observations. As I said in that post, I suggest it is best to be clear first about simply what is directly observed before discussing possible interpretations of those observations. It is, generally, in the interpretations of those observations that the real philosophy starts. But the raw observations themselves first have to be agreed on and understood by the participants.
But the real twin paradox is that both twins get younger than the other twin whether they are receding or approaching. This may look a bit embarrassing to someone.
I don't understand what you mean by "embarrassing" here. What would look embarrassing to who?

When you state "the real twin paradox is that both twins get younger than the other twin whether they are receding or approaching" I'd suggest, in order to avoid people misinterpreting you, that you make it clear how that proposition relates to the observable; i.e. the sense in which it is physically meaningful. This is what I did in the post on the other topic to which I referred in the post to which you have replied. Here's the link again:
viewtopic.php?p=321015#p321015

As you've said, the interpretation that both observers (e.g. twins) put on their raw observations depends crucially on the experimentally determined fact that they can both regard light as travelling at 3 X 108 ms-1 relative to themselves, despite the fact that they are moving relative to each other; even if their relative velocity is itself close to the speed of light. It is this fact that distinguishes the Relativistic Doppler Effect from the Doppler Effect involving sound with which we're all familiar if we've ever stood near a busy road. The key difference is that sound propagates in a medium (e.g. air) that exists in a reference frame that is independent from any observer. So it travels at different speeds relative to different observers. This has famously been found experimentally to not to be true of light.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Sculptor1 »

creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:20 am
Sculptor1 wrote: January 14th, 2020, 2:24 pm

You've had plenty of evidence directed towards you, and you have countered with NOTHING.
This is because, to you, there is absolutely NOTHING in the Universe that could counter the so called "evidence", correct?

What you call "evidence" is just re-repeating what you have read or been told, which is what I am saying is WRONG and/or FALSE.

I have already told you WHY I say the interpretation of the results, which is what you are calling "evidence" is WRONG and FALSE. But you are so CLOSED to accept this and/or you are so BLIND that you are unable to see this. Either way you have shown absolutely NO interest in what I have said here so far.

So, although I have actually countered what you call "evidence", you are just so blind to it that you cannot even see where I have.
Sculptor1 wrote: January 14th, 2020, 2:24 pm So, yes, people are fed up with you being silly.
Call it whatever you like, and I have absolutely NO care of what people are fed up with. That will NOT change the facts of what I have been pointing out and showing here. ALL people get quickly get fed up with others when they are pointing out and showing the falsehoods and wrongness in their beliefs about what is actually true, right, and correct.
Sculptor1 wrote: January 14th, 2020, 2:24 pm You can have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts.
What does the word 'facts' mean to you?

I am unable to get a clarifying answer out of another poster here to the same question. I will see I can get one from you?
Sculptor1 wrote: January 14th, 2020, 2:24 pm What you believe is meaningless, without backup, and you have none.
You are so BLINDED by your own beliefs that you have absolutely NO idea what my views are. I have written the same thing more than four times I would say now and you are STILL incapable of seeing it.

I have also made the claim that I can back up what I say and claim, which is the very opposite of what I have encountered in this forum, but because most of the people here do not even know what my actual views are, they are completely incapable of even challenging or questioning me. They fear that I may have some actual evidence, proofs, and facts that will completely discredit what they believe is correct, that they are not even open to the idea that I might actually have some, let alone ever doing anything at all into delving into this fact.

I will say it again OBVIOUSLY 'time' does not do what was predicted in special relativity, for the very simple FACT of what the results were from the actual experiment done, which is believed by most in the scientific community has already confirmed and verified the predictions.

See, assumptions, beliefs, and confirmation biases have made some very severely distorted interpretations here.

This can ALL be backed up and supported if anyone here is able to challenge me on this?

I have sent out an invitation a few times already, but no one has taken up this invite.
Blah, blah, blah.
Deal or don't deal.
Stop squirming, it makes you look so small.
Tamminen
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Tamminen »

Steve3007 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 6:01 am I don't understand what you mean by "embarrassing" here. What would look embarrassing to who?
I just meant that it is counterintuitive and seemingly illogical if we take the word 'younger' in its everyday meaning. Perhaps I did not catch the connotation of 'embarrassing' in English.
Steve3007
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Steve3007 »

Tamminen wrote:I just meant that it is counterintuitive and seemingly illogical if we take the word 'younger' in its everyday meaning. Perhaps I did not catch the connotation of 'embarrassing' in English.
Fair enough. I'd tend to use "embarrassing" for situations such as accidentally leaving the house without trousers on. If we're honest and clear with our arguments I don't see anything in the context of a discussion like this as embarrassing. If there are situations which at first sight look like paradoxes but turn out not to be, or situations where new evidence forces an existing theory to be modified or replaced, I'd say "interesting" is a better word.
Steve3007
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote:Not every action, just cyclical ones. Cyclical actions make natural clocks.
Good point. Although no event ever exactly reiterates a previous event, whereby the only difference is its position in time. So, as ever, it's up to the process of Induction, applied to large sets of experiences, to define what constitutes a cyclical process and mathematically idealise it ("assume the horse is spherical"). Just as it's up to Induction, applied to large numbers of "clocks", to define what constitutes what Plato might have called the Form Of The Clock, and idealise it as the concept of time.
In an earlier thought experiment, we considered what time would be to us if the Earth was thrown from its orbit and was given an unstable rotation. At that point, the Earth would no longer operate as a natural clock because its motions would not be cyclical. There would be no more years with four seasons, and no more days and nights.
Here's another thought experiment: Suppose your clock (your man-made mechanical clock; hence no scare-quotes) starts ticking irregularly such that the time between each tick alternates between 1 and 2 seconds. 1, 2, 1, 2... (or it could be any other irregular sequence). How would you know? By comparing with another "clock" (either man-made or natural). Suppose all "clocks" (man-made and natural) do that. How could you know? You couldn't. So in those circumstances, is it physically meaningful to propose that these clocks are doing this?
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am
creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 4:58 am
NickGaspar wrote: January 14th, 2020, 1:43 pm

This thread has become a portal for new age ideologies.
Considering the title of this thread is asking:

Is time just an idea?

Were you expecting only those with the very old ideology that time is some actual thing, which could actually change, relative to where an observer is, to be the only ones to discuss this?
1.Verified observations, with epistemic connectedness and technical applications are not ideologies.
Falsified and wrong interpretations of observations are not reasonable facts also
NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am 2. I am expecting objective,verifiable facts supportive of your ideas...not to ignore established ones.
Like I have informed you enough times already, you do not even know what my ideas are.
NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am 3. Your inability to understand our current epistemology or you plane ignorace of it is jaw dropping .
Drop it as far as you want to. Your assumption of what is actually taking place here might just be completely wrong.

By the way, you did not answer my question, once again.

NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am
Why is it that the ones who are so firmly steadfast and so more closed, because of their already held beliefs, are also the ones who do not like anyone saying anything at all that opposes their beliefs?
-You can say anything you want while drinking in a bar , or while writing literature or poems or while talking to other magical thinkers or to your self.
But you are not allowed to claim that you practice philosophy while you are distorting or ignoring well established facts.
Your definition of philosophy completely opposes mine. So, I can claim I do philosophy, which totally refutes your claim I am not allowed to claim that I practice philosophy.
NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am You are entitled to your opinion...not to your own facts.
-You are not entitled to your own rules of logic.
-You are not entitled to change the criteria science uses in its evaluation and definition of knowledge and truth.
You obviously are incapable of clarifying your own writings and claims and also totally incapable of challenging me on my views, you cannot even question my ideas. So, we will just have to wait and see what happens.

NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am Nobody can come up with your conclusions without being guilty of those shenanigans of yours...
You cannot express what my conclusions are. This is because you have absolutely no idea what they are.

You have been so absolutely easy to manipulate that you actually believe that you know my ideas are wrong, yet you still do not even know what my ideas are.
NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am
Why are they so quick to shut anyone down who says anything opposing their belief instead of just looking at and talking about the "new" idea instead?
Because ignorance, low standards of evidence, dishonesty, stupidity, "I know it all" mentality and irrationality are easy to spot. Unfalsifiable ideas based on distorted or ignored facts do not qualify as "new ideas" but as magical thinking.
If you say so.

Oh by the way, what was it again that are 'my ideas', which you are actually disputing here?
NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:46 am


Okay.
The creationist agreed....
I agreed that you made a bet on something.

If you assumed anything else, then that shows just how easy you are to manipulate, in order to have my predictions confirmed and verified.

LOL by the way, who is the creationist here?

Are you not yet aware that there is a thing called evolution, which is how you arrived where you are right now?

This is the second one I have manipulated, to think in a certain way, for my own intentions, just from the use of one word. And that was before I even actually said anything.
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am Sorry for assuming you were a creationist.
As I said before there is absolutely no need to apologize. A lot of what I write can be portrayed as meaning one thing, while thee actual truth may well be the very opposite thing.
Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am As a matter of interest, why did you choose "creation" as a forum name?
Because I want to show what happens when people start assuming, and believing, things before they actually decide to find out, and know, thee truth.

The best way I thought this would work is to test this on subjects who are completely oblivious to any actual test or experiment being done.
Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am
creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 4:46 am
True.

And what is your view, what is 'time', to you?
Like most of the world, I don't know.
But, as you so right pointed out here, some of us do know.
Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am To me, personally, in one sense Greenwich Mean Time time rules my life, broadly deciding when I do things. In another sense, time does not exist for me because I'm too busy finding novel ways of messing up the present.
Both perfectly legitimate definitions and explanations.

Absolutely every person has their own personal views.

Finding out which views are actually right, from which ones are wrong, is just part of lesson of living, and learning.

Some of us like to keep discovering, learning, and understanding more. While some are quite happy and satisfied with the views they already have now.
Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am
creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 4:46 am
Okay, so when people say "natural clocks" am I wrong in thinking that people are talking about absolutely every physical action?

If yes, then what exactly are they talking about and referring to? How does one separate a "natural clock" from what is not a "natural clock"? And, is one rotation of the earth around the sun 1 "tick" or many "ticks"? What makes a "natural clock" a 'natural clock', and, what exactly is 'it' that makes something a "natural clock"?
Not every action, just cyclical ones. Cyclical actions make natural clocks.
But some people say that "ticking" of a process, like an atom, is time. But, is there any cyclical actions there?
Greta wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:50 am In an earlier thought experiment, we considered what time would be to us if the Earth was thrown from its orbit and was given an unstable rotation. At that point, the Earth would no longer operate as a natural clock because its motions would not be cyclical. There would be no more years with four seasons, and no more days and nights.
Yes that might be true of what happened in an earlier thought experiment. But, from the definition of the word 'time' that I use, which fits in perfectly with all the other definitions I have for other words, then I, almost instantly, arrived at an answer to that thought experiment, which further backs up the previous observations I have made, and further supports the current views that I have now.

To me, why my clarifying questions are not answered, or are answered but my following challenging clarifying questions are not, is because I already have all the answers, in my OWN word, which fit and work perfectly together, of which this obviously means that ALL my answers could be wrong, for all I know. But, at the current moment my answer all appear to be working quite well in verifying each other and as well explaining how all them work, and interact together, with each other, perfectly. Of course this needs verifying by others, but if I cannot successfully get past people's assumptions and beliefs to express my views, of which are of some "new" ideas, then they will never even be look at, let alone discussed, and able to be falsified, nor verified.
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:58 am
creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 4:46 am
Greta wrote: January 14th, 2020, 11:12 pm
I am as far removed from theism as could be, so making assumptions of just one word can lead people so far removed from the truth that they start believing the exact opposite is true. If you see me as being really aggressive, then I must be writing in some particular way that I am completely unaware of. So, because I do not see this aggressiveness at all in anything I write, then providing examples of where I appear 'really aggressive' to you, then I will be able to change my writing in a way so that I do not appear as so aggressive to you again. But the main reason I directly ask people questions here is because of what they, themselves, have usually said. By the way, if and when I read answers, by a quick search, and I see the flaws, faults, falsehoods, inaccuracies, contradictions, and/or incompatibilities in them, and I begin to point them out here, I am usually instantly informed that I do not know what I am talking about and/or that that is not what is purported.
Finally we identify the problem. You are the "quick search" guy. That explains everything.
Your confusing on why GPS work is based on your "quick search" system...ok.
Yep, now that you have identified the so called "problem", hopefully you can now understand the "problem" and resolve it as well. Then there is now hopefully no more need for you to keep telling everyone my views, of which you do even not yet know, are clearly wrong.

Also, I think you have completely misunderstood, once again, something here. The bold words "by a quick search" was in direct reference to what someone else said and wrote.

I thought I had already made it clear that I have not intellectually studied absolutely anything at all here.

I just see flaws and faults, which obviously may not be. So, that it is why I ask for clarification by people like the ones here on a philosophy forum, and when they cannot clarify, then that gives me more of an idea about what is actually wrong and false, and what is not.

By the way, what have I written that shows my "confusing" on why gps work?

Not one person here, including yourself, said what I wrote on how gps works was in anyway wrong or incorrect before. So, why bring this up now?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Terrapin Station »

NickGaspar wrote: January 15th, 2020, 4:01 am @Steve3007
@Greta
@Terrapin Station
@Sculptor1
Since this is a philosophical platform and many of us have to put up with people who don't respect specific values of philosophy, like epistemology or logic, I find useful to post this talk on Philosophical Demarcation (Philosophy from Pseudo Philosophy) and the role of science.
I hope you'll enjoy it and find it useful for your discussions with all those pseudo philosophers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lvg4di3sAw&t=1s
I'm actually very fond of Feyerabend on this sort of issue. ;-)
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

Steve3007 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 6:01 am Answer to this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345904#p345904
That post was an answer to this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345897#p345897
Tamminen wrote:To avoid confusion, this is indeed the relativistic Doppler effect, but not time dilation. Time dilation is the same whether those two observers recede or approach if their relative velocity is the same, which can be seen in my geometrical proof a few posts ago. Just turn the triangle upside down. I also suggest that @creation takes a good look at that proof to get an answer to the question of how one can make a 5 year trip in 3 years. Needs some insight into the principle of relativity though. And remember the constancy of light speed.
I appreciate what you're saying and have said. I agree that in order to critique a subject one needs to have some idea of what it says and why it says it - the foundations of what it says. Otherwise (to use an analogy with building a house that I posted in a different topic) one thinks that other people are proposing that the roof of a house can levitate in the air with no means of support from any lower storeys and foundations. And one naturally mocks them for that proposition because one hasn't bothered to notice the presence of those foundations.

But my point in that post was to re-iterate, by example, what I said in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=345704#p345704

A large element of the long, long argument here simply stems from not clearly distinguishing that which is directly observed and that which is logically concluded from those observations. As I said in that post, I suggest it is best to be clear first about simply what is directly observed before discussing possible interpretations of those observations. It is, generally, in the interpretations of those observations that the real philosophy starts. But the raw observations themselves first have to be agreed on and understood by the participants.
And from the outset I have been saying, to me, it is the interpretations of the observed results, of the experiments that are said to have confirmed or verified the predictions, is what I am in contention with.

Besides this, which obviously we can observe easily because the results are written down for all to see, I have also tried to offer up a very rather simple thought experiment about traveling at the speed of light, to make it much easier for all to work the numbers out, and what is observed and experienced in that. But it appears NO one wants to look at this and discuss this.

I am just continually more or less told that my views are incorrect, because the predictions have already been verified and confirmed correct.

I would dearly LOVE to come to an agreement and understanding by ALL participants, even if that is just one more than me alone, on what would be actually observed in a thought experiment, and then, as just pointed out, the real logical reasoning starts.

To be clear about simply what is 'directly' observed obviously needs clear direct answers from the people, themselves, and what they observe, and NOT what they have been told that they would observe.

If, however, when you talk about being clear first about simply what is directly observed before discussing possible interpretations of those observations, and the 'directly observed' you talk about is in relation to what has been written in a book or been told to you, then, to me, I cannot discuss the possible interpretations of those observations, because the interpretation backs up and supports the observations AND the observations back up and supports the interpretations. So, like I keep asking, is there anything to discuss regarding that? That has all been backed up and supported with its own interpretations and experiments.

But if anyone wants to be clear first about simply what is 'it' that 'they' directly observe, then that would be great. But you are a very hard person to find.
Steve3007 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 6:01 am
But the real twin paradox is that both twins get younger than the other twin whether they are receding or approaching. This may look a bit embarrassing to someone.
I don't understand what you mean by "embarrassing" here. What would look embarrassing to who?

When you state "the real twin paradox is that both twins get younger than the other twin whether they are receding or approaching" I'd suggest, in order to avoid people misinterpreting you, that you make it clear how that proposition relates to the observable; i.e. the sense in which it is physically meaningful. This is what I did in the post on the other topic to which I referred in the post to which you have replied. Here's the link again:
viewtopic.php?p=321015#p321015

As you've said, the interpretation that both observers (e.g. twins) put on their raw observations depends crucially on the experimentally determined fact that they can both regard light as travelling at 3 X 108 ms-1 relative to themselves, despite the fact that they are moving relative to each other; even if their relative velocity is itself close to the speed of light. It is this fact that distinguishes the Relativistic Doppler Effect from the Doppler Effect involving sound with which we're all familiar if we've ever stood near a busy road. The key difference is that sound propagates in a medium (e.g. air) that exists in a reference frame that is independent from any observer. So it travels at different speeds relative to different observers. This has famously been found experimentally to not to be true of light.
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

Sculptor1 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 6:31 am
creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:20 am

This is because, to you, there is absolutely NOTHING in the Universe that could counter the so called "evidence", correct?

What you call "evidence" is just re-repeating what you have read or been told, which is what I am saying is WRONG and/or FALSE.

I have already told you WHY I say the interpretation of the results, which is what you are calling "evidence" is WRONG and FALSE. But you are so CLOSED to accept this and/or you are so BLIND that you are unable to see this. Either way you have shown absolutely NO interest in what I have said here so far.

So, although I have actually countered what you call "evidence", you are just so blind to it that you cannot even see where I have.



Call it whatever you like, and I have absolutely NO care of what people are fed up with. That will NOT change the facts of what I have been pointing out and showing here. ALL people get quickly get fed up with others when they are pointing out and showing the falsehoods and wrongness in their beliefs about what is actually true, right, and correct.



What does the word 'facts' mean to you?

I am unable to get a clarifying answer out of another poster here to the same question. I will see I can get one from you?



You are so BLINDED by your own beliefs that you have absolutely NO idea what my views are. I have written the same thing more than four times I would say now and you are STILL incapable of seeing it.

I have also made the claim that I can back up what I say and claim, which is the very opposite of what I have encountered in this forum, but because most of the people here do not even know what my actual views are, they are completely incapable of even challenging or questioning me. They fear that I may have some actual evidence, proofs, and facts that will completely discredit what they believe is correct, that they are not even open to the idea that I might actually have some, let alone ever doing anything at all into delving into this fact.

I will say it again OBVIOUSLY 'time' does not do what was predicted in special relativity, for the very simple FACT of what the results were from the actual experiment done, which is believed by most in the scientific community has already confirmed and verified the predictions.

See, assumptions, beliefs, and confirmation biases have made some very severely distorted interpretations here.

This can ALL be backed up and supported if anyone here is able to challenge me on this?

I have sent out an invitation a few times already, but no one has taken up this invite.
Blah, blah, blah.
Deal or don't deal.
Stop squirming, it makes you look so small.
What do you think or believe I am "squirming" in relation to exactly?

Are you aware that you have not actually said anything other than attempts at dismissing and discrediting me, and ridiculing me?

I really could not care less if I looked the smallest.

You have not actually picked up anything I said and said something like; This is wrong because ...
Tamminen
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Tamminen »

creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 5:39 am I asked HOW can you make a 5 year trip in 3 years? Either you can explain HOW, or you cannot.
I did not mean to be arrogant, I just thought that I cannot explain it better than I already did.

But I try. So here is the original proof:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16368&start=525#p345413

So a rocket takes off from the Earth and travels to a planet 4 light years from the Earth with the speed of 80% of light speed. You are the traveler in the rocket. At the moment the rocket starts its journey you launch a photon out into space horizontally, not in the direction of the journey. Nothing tells you that you move, so the photon travels in your reference frame, in the same way that it would travel if you had launced it on the ground. This is the general classical principle of relativity. Now let us say that it takes 3 years from the photon to travel a distance of 3 light years during your trip to the planet. This is the time your trip takes according to your clocks in the rocket, and this is also how much older you are when you arrive on the planet.

But when your twin brother on Earth measures the trip of the same photon, he must take into account that the rocket is 4 light years away from the Earth now at the end of the trip. But the speed of light is the same in both reference frames. The only logically possible conclusion is that the trip has taken a much longer time measured with a clock in the reference frame of the Earth, in this case 5 years. This is the hypotenuse of the triangle.

Note that 'year' here is not defined by the Earth revolving around the Sun, but as so and so many seconds.

I think this is all I can say about this.
creation
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by creation »

Steve3007 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 7:48 am
Greta wrote:Not every action, just cyclical ones. Cyclical actions make natural clocks.
Good point. Although no event ever exactly reiterates a previous event, whereby the only difference is its position in time. So, as ever, it's up to the process of Induction, applied to large sets of experiences, to define what constitutes a cyclical process and mathematically idealise it ("assume the horse is spherical"). Just as it's up to Induction, applied to large numbers of "clocks", to define what constitutes what Plato might have called the Form Of The Clock, and idealise it as the concept of time.
In an earlier thought experiment, we considered what time would be to us if the Earth was thrown from its orbit and was given an unstable rotation. At that point, the Earth would no longer operate as a natural clock because its motions would not be cyclical. There would be no more years with four seasons, and no more days and nights.
Here's another thought experiment: Suppose your clock (your man-made mechanical clock; hence no scare-quotes) starts ticking irregularly such that the time between each tick alternates between 1 and 2 seconds. 1, 2, 1, 2... (or it could be any other irregular sequence). How would you know? By comparing with another "clock" (either man-made or natural). Suppose all "clocks" (man-made and natural) do that. How could you know? You couldn't.
Yes you could. Or, more truthfully I can, and do. But if you believe that you could not, then that must be true, for you.

The whole point of what I will eventually get to, that is; if anyone is willing to challenge and question me, is what are clocks actually set relative to? When this is realized, with other things, then what 'time' actually is becomes KNOWN.


Steve3007 wrote: January 15th, 2020, 7:48 am So in those circumstances, is it physically meaningful to propose that these clocks are doing this?
By the way, in what country do these people come from that use the phrase "scare-quotes"? And, is it just the double or the single ones of them or both of them that is referred to as "scare-quotes"? And, what is it exactly that they were told and thus learned in relation to "scare-quotes", and the way in which they are used or "meant" to be used?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Terrapin Station »

creation wrote: January 15th, 2020, 9:25 am The whole point of what I will eventually get to, that is; if anyone is willing to challenge and question me, is what are clocks actually set relative to? When this is realized, with other things, then what 'time' actually is becomes KNOWN.
They're ultimately set to the sun's position in the sky on certain dates and they're calibrated so that one rotation of the Earth equals 24 hours (which for precision purposes we worked out that a second equals the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom).

Setting and calibrating to the sun and Earth are of course pretty arbitrary things, but it does as well as anything else, and it works for practical purposes for us, situated as we are on the Earth.

Since time is simply motion or change, we could use any motion or change as the measure, as the calibration, etc., but of course we prefer apparently regular motions/changes, and the motion and change of the Earth on its axis and the sun's motion in the sky relative to our rotation and revolution has practical benefits for us (since we're biologically adapted to this particular cycle).
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Re: Is Time Just an Idea?

Post by Terrapin Station »

By the way, since the Earth's rotation is slowing, we add "leap seconds" to coordinated universal time every so often. We've added 27 leap seconds so far in just under 50 years.
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