Does time exist?

Jeeves said:
What do you mean by "exist"?
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In my book "exist" means having an expressed value independent of other values.

AFAIK time has no value independent of other values. There is no way to measure time itself.
Measurable time becomes expressed only as a result of duration of other processes.
 
Oh I see now."Does time exist" as a logical proposition is very hard to pin down.

As is "does the dodo exist" etc etc.

But if both sides to a discussion can assume their own meaning to the phrase then the two (or more) can happily yabber on ,the deaf leading the deaf as it were.

The language of the OP is too general for a formal discussion.
 
geordief said:
The language of the OP is too general for a formal discussion.
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I agree, but that does not prohibit a less formal discussion that may still be informative as to the application of different perspectives to a more or less abstract concept.
 
Write4U said:
I agree, but that does not prohibit a less formal discussion that may still be informative as to the application of different perspectives to a more or less abstract concept.
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Does it preclude any of the participants having a more correct perspective than the others?

Might it also make the participants something of a laughing stock to those who don't take part?

Is the discussion as much as a mental exercise as anything?

By the way ,godlike the OP has left us to our own devices ;)
 
Beer w/Straw said:
Explain it to me.
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Well I just got the gist I think.

Kind of garbage in garbage out.
For "time exists" you have to know what is meant by "time" and what is meant by "exists"

If either cannot be defined to your satisfaction then the question makes no sense and cannot be answered other than for the sake of pure disputation.

You can see how seriously the OP took the question by the fact that Saint has not bothered to contribute to her own thread.

Edit well apart from the first few posts,(she is getting chattier)
 
geordief said:
Well I just got the gist I think.

Kind of garbage in garbage out.
For "time exists" you have to know what is meant by "time" and what is meant by "exists"

If either cannot be defined to your satisfaction then the question makes no sense and cannot be answered other than for the sake of pure disputation.

You can see how seriously the OP took the question by the fact that Saint has not bothered to contribute to her own thread.

Edit well apart from the first few posts,(she is getting chattier)
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Well, I'm fully explained.

You're great.
 
geordief said:
Well I just got the gist I think.

Kind of garbage in garbage out.
For "time exists" you have to know what is meant by "time" and what is meant by "exists"

If either cannot be defined to your satisfaction then the question makes no sense and cannot be answered other than for the sake of pure disputation.

You can see how seriously the OP took the question by the fact that Saint has not bothered to contribute to her own thread.

Edit well apart from the first few posts,(she is getting chattier)
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I agree it is all a question of what one means by the question.

If you put it in the negative you can see how silly it can sound. Most people would say that "length doesn't exist" is a pretty stupid statement, unless heavily qualified. Or "electric charge doesn't exist." Or "energy doesn't exist". Yet all three only have existence in relation to some entity, of which they are an attribute.
 
exchemist said:
If you put it in the negative you can see how silly it can sound. Most people would say that "length doesn't exist" is a pretty stupid statement, unless heavily qualified. Or "electric charge doesn't exist." Or "energy doesn't exist". Yet all three only have existence in relation to some entity, of which they are an attribute
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Wonder why we have a god of Time but not a god of Distance or Energy ** in that case ;)

Time is a more human centred attribute?

**was Zeus the god of Energy(Power)?

Hermes the god of Distance ?(Messenger)
 
geordief said:
Wonder why we have a god of Time but not a god of Distance or Energy ** in that case ;)

Time is a more human centred attribute?

**was Zeus the god of Energy(Power)?

Hermes the god of Distance ?(Messenger)
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Energy was not defined until after the time of Newton. Zeus used thunderbolts, did he not? So was he the God of Electric Charge, then? Come on. I really don't think the attributes or powers of the Greek Gods contribute much to understanding this issue. ;)
 
exchemist said:
I really don't think the attributes or powers of the Greek Gods contribute much to understanding this issue.
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They rally don't. The ancient Greeks had a fine understanding of many subjects with which the scholars of Christian Europe struggled for the next 1500 years. But they had the same problem with time:
The early Greek philosophers generally believed that the universe (and therefore time itself) was infinite with no beginning and no end. In the 5th Century BCE, the Sophist philosopher Antiphon asserted that time is not a reality (hypostasis), but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron). Also in the 5th Century BCE, Parmenides saw time (as well as motion and many other everyday things that we take for granted) as nothing more than an illusion because, he argued, all change is impossible and illusory (time as an illusion is also a common theme in Buddhist thought). Parmenides, then, believed that reality was limited to what exists in the here and now, and the past and future are unreal and imaginary. His near-contemporary Heraclitus, on the other hand, firmly believed that the flow of time is real and the very essence of reality.
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