Does time exist?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Shadow1, Mar 31, 2010.

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Does time exist?

This poll will close on Sep 13, 2037 at 2:04 PM.
  1. Yes

    55.6%
  2. No

    44.4%
Multiple votes are allowed.
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  1. Dredd Dredd Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    238
    Yes, it does, otherwise everything would happen at once.

    Someone said: "time is what keeps everything from happening at once". :bugeye:

    I have a subscription to Time. :shrug:

    Plus, time has a shadow so it must have a corpus of sorts too.
     
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  3. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    .

    got you right heren you said it, clocks there are slower, cuase the gravity is lower, so, if there was time, it would be always the same everywhere, but, since it don't, and it's just a way to orgenize our lifes and events, so, the clocks affects with the type, like gravity, the clock is just a mecanical device, invented by many civilisations, not just mecanicle ones, also arabs and egyptians and otehrs used the sun, and teh stick on teh ground, when teh sun change it's place, or shall i say, earth, the shadow moves, the shadow of the stick, it moves, like a clock, also, the water clock, i don't know how it works, i'll check how it do, anyway, clocks and time, are just a way to orgenize our lifes, arabs needed time, to orgenise their prayers times, their relegion special days, also for travel time mesure, etc...

    if you sya time exist cause if it didnt things will happen at the same time, what insure that? also, who said that it will, this answer, about all things happends in the same time, still related to the existence of time, while time, actually don't exist, for example, while oyu're next to a black hole, the time is veryslow, but, actually, no, not teh time, but everything is slow, because of teh strong gravity, the very very strong gravity, that almost slow down everything, causewhen that body, or thing, or mater, try to continue it's cycle, and it's move, or life cycle, etc... the ectremily strong gravity will be opposite for that, and it will be like a wall against this prosees, so, it slow down, so, your answer that liek you say prove the existence of time, it don't actually convicne me, i need a strong proof to be convinced.
     
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  5. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    12,738
    Are time and entropy the same thing?
    If not, what's the difference?
     
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  7. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    19,252
    Faster when gravity is lower.

    Nonsense: length and mass aren't the same everywhere (at high speeds for example).

    Because time separates events the way length separates locations.
     
  8. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,266
    how do you mean this exactly? are you referring to the irony in that a moderator responds with ad hom, and at the same time reveals his own ignorance of how a term such as materialism is employed in the 20th (and 21st) century? (lest he be feigning ignorance, as i suggested; though his "point" re: quarks, bosons, and leptons is certainly suggestive of ignorance of contemporary usage).

    to which i might add, the moderator in question is the linguistics moderator, and he seems to be deferring to a 19th century understanding of a term. moreover, as i noted above, this moderator is also renowned for espousing his own curious superstitious notions.

    yeah, "zinger" indeed. personally, i call it pathetic.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2010
  9. chuk15 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    30
    I don't think time is any of that. Time is simply a measure between two states. However, that does not explain why states even have the ability to change. BUT, if we define time as a change between two states, we can make accurate predictions. (distance = rate x time).

    I don't believe that time is as complicated as you're making it out to be. xD
     
  10. mark1234 Registered Member

    Messages:
    1
    time does exist..everything around you and their nature of changing proves the existence of it..
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    My wife has an M.A. in literature. Jung was a required course in the master's program because the theory of archetypes explains why the same motifs occur throughout history, in nearly every culture and era. I have a business degree and Jung's work is also taught in management classes, e.g. the Meyers-Briggs profile is used in virtually every large enterprise. I've had Jungian psychotherapy and learned how his theories inform dream analysis. Jungian psychologists are invited to give seminars to corporate management teams in Malaysia and other countries, including ours. The only places in the USA where Freud's model is still widely taught--as a tool rather than a subject of philosophy--are medical schools. This is why I urge people who are considering seeking a psychiatrist--an M.D.--for counseling, to check his credentials first.
    In my experience, most Americans older than 30, whether they read a lot or not, know the word "materialist" only as a communist insult to capitalists. Doreen is the only person I've ever encountered who uses it as a supernaturalist insult to scientists. I had to look it up to find that it goes back to the days before relativity, probably even before the discovery of electricity, when the public image of a scientist was a person primarily concerned with material rather than energy.
    If you regard "materialist" as the antonym of "supernaturalist," then I guess you're right, within the halls of your own academic community. But I don't understand why you don't just use the simpler and more obvious word "naturalist." The position of science is that the natural universe is all there is, and that its behavior can be understood and predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior. Since that premise, which underlies the entire discipline of science and succinctly defines the scientific method, has been exhaustively tested for half a millennium and has never come close to being falsified, it is unreasonable to doubt it.

    So should we start returning the insult and call those who deny the validity and utility of science "unreasonablists"?
     
  12. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,266
    ummm, is there a point here? my wife also has an m.a. in literature, i have an m.a.. in religious studies and anthropology, not sure of the relevance of all this. the fact is, for jung is about as highly regarded these days as is freud--which is not to suggest that their work is wholly without merit, it simply lacks scientific foundations. that his work remains enormously influential does in no way attest to it's soundness. for that matter, lacan is still highly influential in psychoanalysis, and lacan makes 'pataphysicians appear positively scientific (and they're certainly not trying).

    even with respect to archetypal motifs seemingly appearing throughout all cultures and throughout history, such is by no means definitively established. much of this contention is based upon claims made by early and mid twentieth century anthropologists whose methodologies were somewhat dubious and hardly scientific, IOW much of what has been contested by the likes of eliade, et al, is now regarded as more a curiosity than anything else. such anthropologists seemed to have an astonishing record for finding precisely what they were looking for; that is, they adapted their findings to accord with their own cultural (and religious) presuppositions.

    and as to the matter of speculating upon the beliefs and practices of pre-literate/pre-historic peoples, i.e. from paleolithic cave paintings for instance, claims to their having performed rites for transcendent or ecstatic experience (as an example) are highly suspect. moreover, with regards to the matter of transcendent practices specifically, contemporary work amongst modern nomadic peoples suggests that many hold no such notions of the transcendent as found amongst both western and asiatic cultures. (i've got loads of interesting sources for this, if you are interested).

    well, i would have to say that your experience is quite limited in this respect then: the term "materialism," which is often (today) used interchangeably with "physicalism," is rather common parlance in the humanities. as you'll note, the original query to which you responded was directed at Dywydder. i can't speak for Doreen nor Dywydder, but my suspicion--based upon my experiences with him--is that Dywydder would know precisely what was intended by materialism. and he would not have made the error which you did, in assuming that quantum concerns are somehow not of "material" nature.

    certainly, some might be inclined to employ "materialistic" as a means of characterizing much, much earlier thinking--such as the notions of pre-socratics like thales or democritus--but the sense would here clearly be conveyed by the context.

    moreover, where do you get this notion that "materialist" was being employed as a "supernaturalistic insult"? are you psychic? my understanding was that Doreen's question was simply for sake of clarification.

    and finally, here is but one instance of an ordinary bloke employing "materialist" in the sense intended here: a question and answer session with robert wyatt (ex-soft machine, matching mole, henry cow, news from babel, et al) from 2007. within the first few minutes, wyatt--also a communist (maoist specifically)--mentions that he is a materialist, within the context of expressing his respect for richard dawkins! robert wyatt q & a, purcell room, london, 2007
    sometimes naturalist is used, but as i have noted "materialist" and "physicalist" are common parlance within the humanities.

    again, what insult? you strike me as either making a claim to be psychic, or as rather paranoid here, for there is no "insult."

    and for that matter, who is denying the "validity and utility of science"?
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2010
  13. jmpet Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,891
    This is the third or fourth time this thread came up in this forum.

    YES, TIME EXISTS.
     
  14. Echo3Romeo One man wolfpack Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,196
    Yeah, what is it with these forums attracting threads like this? Seems like every time I swing by there's something that makes your brain hurt.

    SciForums.com : Science : General Science & Technology : perpetual motion/free energy equations
     
  15. Doreen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,101
    For what it's worth, I reported your ad hom attack to the mods. I didn't call scientists materialists, I said Dywyddyr was. He can correct me if I was not correct. It is relevent to the topic. Also I think you are unaware, as shown later in your post, of how the term in used. Many people, including scientists, call themselves materialists, while quite aware of all that you say about bosons, etc. They mean it to include both matter and energy and everything else so far found by scientists. If you had so much trouble with the term I wish you had supported me in the threads where I criticized it as extremely misleading. And where, by the way, the term was defended by a number of people here.

    My little in joke was nothing of the sort. You have projected some other person and some other set of issues onto my post.
    Um, no. The term is still used and it is used here by a number of people who are as aware as you and I are about bosons, etc. In fact I've had a whole thread on the topic. The issue you raise, here, about what makes up 'matter' as we know it, has no relevence to the issue I was raising with Dywyddyr, a person I have had a number of good old respectful dialogues with.

    I said

    I assume you are a materialist.

    to show the assumptions I was making about his positions, something gleaned from a number of dialogues we have had. If I wanted to insult him I would not have put it out in this way. I wanted to make sure he understood my assumptions to place the subsequent question in context. I was laying my cards out in advance in fact, because I respect Dywyddyr and we have had great interactions, at least for me, which have helped my clarify much of my thinking.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2010
  16. noodler Banned Banned

    Messages:
    751
    In my book, time exists but there is no way to prove it does.
    The concept of imaginary time at right angles to a "real" time is perfectly acceptable, so therefore time in that sense can only be real if it's also imaginary.

    And information is something that fundamentally depends on time, information is physical so that's how we have the idea of "real, physical" time.

    So there.
     
  17. Doreen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,101
    None of this is scientific support for the notion of archetypes. Literature programs have also had Marx, Freud, Lacan, feminists and a slew of others 'analysts' on their required studies. So? A scientist could easily point out the sloppy protocols involved in the pattern discernation used by literary analysts. All sorts of patterns can be found in complex ambiguous works of literature. Don't get me wrong, I think Jung has a lot to offer. But he his ideas have not passed much scientific muster. The argument that corporations invite in Jungian speakers means very little. Corporations have inviting a wide range of New Age fluff speakers also. And again, it is hardly scientific support. Raising the issue of Freud makes no sense in context. It is not as if Parmalee was arguing that Jung was wrong because Freud was right. Last, many scientists I know are critical of Jung's dreamwork - not just his, but including his - for the same reasons they are skeptical of the 'finding' of patterns in literature. Because there is so much ambiguity and little rigorous science has been done it, they think it is more parsimonious at this time to think that people are finding the patterns they are looking for. Archetypal patterns are rich, complex symbols and the same story can support both Jung and Freud and so can the same dream.

    We keep raising this issue because even though you are comfortable accepting Jung's ideas, I doubt many other scientists here are. Nevertheless there is a silence about your belief in entities - archetypes - that do not have rigorous science supporting their existence.

    I was not using it is an insult. I have nothing but respect for Dywyddyr with whom I have a number of dialogues, none of which ended up with ad homs. You project your issues onto my post and BEGIN with an ad hom. I have raised the issue of materialism in sciforums and it was defended as a fine term. And, in fact, I think it is a perfectly reasonable philosophy/standpoint - as long as one makes provisos for what we now know about matter and energy.

    Sorry, but you are incorrect. The term is still used, though often these days people prefer physicalist, for some reason. For me that word has very similar problems. But, in any case, the term is still used.


    Naturalism and naturalist are fine terms, though they do not have the ontological edge that materialism and physicalism do. If Dywyddyr wants to call himself a naturalist I can work with that also.

    The fact is you returned an insult already, despite my never having insulted Dywyddyr. Further, I have never denied the validity and utility of science.

    You just hopped into the thread and started spitting. I hope you have the integrity to apologize. Please show me where I used the term materialist to insult scientists. It is clear from my post that I was pursuing a line of argument with Dywyddyr. I do not think the question of time's existence is an easy given. I think the question about what is it made of works just as well with naturalists. You may not like this argument, but your hallucination that I was insulting him was simply that.
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    I don't quite see where exactly I insulted you, at least by the rather juvenile standards of this website. However, since you took my comments as insults and I did not (consciously anyway) mean them as more than jibes, I certainly apologize and will strive to be more careful next time.

    Sorry!
     
  19. Doreen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,101
    Thank you.

    I took this as insulting
    and this

    I happen to be pretty well aware, as a layperson, of recent physics.

    and last this

    since in the context of the discussion it implies that this is my stance. I supposedly made the insult, so the return would be to me, amongst others. This is certainly not my stance.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2010
  20. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    3,576
    You could partake in other activities that injure other parts of your body, if you prefer

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    1,891
    Then your "book" is wrong and you are a fool for writing it.
     
  22. Steven Genieus Registered Member

    Messages:
    45
    Time is a human measurement not an entity.

    The concept of time exists but time on its own does not.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2010
  23. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    19,252
    Really?
    So what is it a measurement of?

    Wrong.
     
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