Is time something that really exists?

[Olga]

Everything disappears after death.

• Erwin Schrödinger:: "But it [the universe] certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence. Its becoming manifest is conditional on very special goings-on in very special parts of this very world, namely on certain events that happen in a brain. --What is Life? Mind and Matter?

Similarly, one can assert that there are slightly different global states of the universe that are replacing each other every Planck time unit or quectosecond or whatever measurement for the subatomic level, which occur whether there is any entity around to experientially represent and validate such changes or not (compare the memory of a previous state to a "specious" current one).

But one could alternatively propose that all those different states of the cosmos co-exist (in some manner), and the supposed "movement" through them (to still yield an illusion of change) is just a trick of cognition.

• Hermann Weyl: "The objective world simply IS, it does not HAPPEN. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line [worldline] of my body, does a certain section of this [4-dimensional] world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time." --Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science

Change is as independent of brain representations and psychological judgments as the foul odor of feces or the flat appearance of the Earth (when standing on it) or the green phenomenal attribute of grass. If you believe those appearances and feelings exist without a brain or equivalent apparatus -- exist external to the organ, then so does change. One universal state of the world being constantly replaced by a new one, and who cares about what is regulating that process to ensure coherence from one expunged "now" (state) to the next generated one. (It's magic, or some nomological realm of immaterial principles doing it, or the gosh dern prior-in-rank level making the simulation possible.)
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Если предельная скорость изменения - это скорость света, то как быть с тем, что фотоны появились уже после БВ?
Если связать время со скоростью изменения объектов в пространстве, то получится что каждый кварк в атоме живёт по своему времени. Но кроме кварков и пр. в атоме есть и другие частицы. Среди них фотон, чья скорость предельна. Наверное, мы могли бы взять фотон за некую точку отсчёта. Но тогда нам придётся рассматривать время в обратном направлении. Ну и к тому же возникает вопрос - относительно чего двигается сам фотон?

 

[C C]

If the ultimate rate of change is the speed of light, then what about the fact that photons appeared after the Big Bang? If we relate time to the rate of change of objects in space, then each quark in an atom lives according to its own time. But besides quarks and other particles, an atom contains other particles. Among them is the photon, whose speed is ultimate. Perhaps we could take the photon as a reference point. But then we'd have to consider time in reverse. And then the question arises: relative to what is the photon itself moving?

Each of the three popular stances in philosophy of time has its own supposed issues or problems -- like Presentism potentially struggling to deal with relativity or the universal Now that it objectively dictates. Because whether an advocate of any _X_ likes it or not, others are going to pursue its overarching consequences, how well it hangs together, etc. Criticism which the casual advocate chooses to either ignore or refuses to apprehend.

I tend to prefer Eternalism because its regularities are built into the higher dimensional structure itself (no additional hidden metaphysics needed for guiding and maintaining the inter-consistency of the process that's applicable in Presentism). And it remedies how a bloated and variable unit of brain consciousness (measured in milliseconds) can extend over countless co-existing different states (units) at the subatomic level (which do not pertain in Presentism due its demand that only an objective, global Now exists -- nothing that's past or future relative to that particular Now has the status of being).

However, if the "changes" or progression of different states is infinitely long (time never ends), then that would require a shift to the Growing Block Universe, which then inherits some of the baggage and challenges of Presentism. As well as sporting its own eccentricity of how "more material stuff" is being conjured to constantly add to the "block". Infinite can not be a completed situation because then it would instead be finite (no matter how ridiculously large that settled or definite quantity was).
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[James R]

The thread title is "Is time something that really exists?"

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but to me it seems fairly obvious that events don't all happen at once.

Since that seems to be obvious on the face of it, it follows that whatever it is that divides events (let's call it "time") exists in some form or other. And that's regardless of whether you believe in "block time" model or some other concept of time (a fleeting "now" or whatever it is).

 

[Olga]

The thread title is "Is time something that really exists?"

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but to me it seems fairly obvious that events don't all happen at once.

Since that seems to be obvious on the face of it, it follows that whatever it is that divides events (let's call it "time") exists in some form or other. And that's regardless of whether you believe in "block time" model or some other concept of time (a fleeting "now" or whatever it is).

Это потому что у вас довольно таки примитивный взгляд на вещи.

 

[James R]

This is because you have a rather primitive view of things.

We all have our limitations.

It's a really shame that we can't all be a super genius like you obviously are, Olga.

 

[Olga]

We all have our limitations.

It's a really shame that we can't all be a super genius like you obviously are, Olga.

Может, вам так легче. Каждому своё.

 

[Sarkus]

The thread title is "Is time something that really exists?"

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but to me it seems fairly obvious that events don't all happen at once.

Since that seems to be obvious on the face of it, it follows that whatever it is that divides events (let's call it "time") exists in some form or other. And that's regardless of whether you believe in "block time" model or some other concept of time (a fleeting "now" or whatever it is).

To offer a framing:

All metaphysical and physical positions must (if they are to withstand even a cursory examination, at least) account for the way in which we experience what we call "time". However, there are some such metaphysics/philosophies that see "time" as not real, as not existing. These still have our experience of time as a datum to be explained, so surely that experience can not in and of itself be used to say that "time" is real. Even those philosophies that claim "time" to not be real, to not exist, would accept that we experience something that we refer to as "time". Even McTaggart, who is among those that think "time" is not real, had to explain the experience.

Now, one could shift the definition of "time" to include whatever it is that gives rise to what some might see as the "illusion" of time, but that risks simply defining "time" into existence, and offers nothing explanatory.

Maybe it would help to ask what we mean when we say "time exists". Do we mean that it is fundamental, or emergent, or as an illusion, maybe just mind-dependent? Maybe it is that some people would put the latter few into the "does not exist" category.

 

[C C]

[...] Maybe it would help to ask what we mean when we say "time exists". Do we mean that it is fundamental, or emergent, or as an illusion, maybe just mind-dependent? [...]

When it comes to treating things that are brain dependent as "real" (as in the case of qualia realism), a requirement seems to be that _X_ must be inter-subjectively available to the majority of people (they agree that _X_ is present for them). Which then excludes individual, anomalous hallucinations caused by drugs or mental illness ("We don't see the purple space aliens that you're seeing or hear Bob Hope's voice in the background.") Even though neither the normal ("universal") phenomenal experiences nor the aberrant ones can be publicly observed or detected (as they privately are) anywhere in a brain at either a macroscopic or microscopic level.

Similar with "change". Everyone alive and conscious in the conventional manner experiences the extrospective world and one's own (introspective) thoughts changing. Whether... That's literally the external environment constantly replacing itself, alternatively an "ontological movement" from one configuration in a 4-D structure to another, or instead a trick of memory-based cognition -- a particular brain state only manifesting itself as "real" (excluding all the other neural "islands" along the body's worldline in that presentation, because that unit of awareness is only devoted to itself). Regardless, the majority of humans cognitively encounter change just as their minds feature qualitative experiences in general, and in that context it may be deemed "real".

Oliver Sacks once referenced patients of his who sometimes experienced visual stills (the world froze for temporary intervals), due to some clinical condition. But it's now known that Sacks invented some of his accounts. But still, I suppose one has to allow for the possibility of divergent brains that occasionally lose the ability to manifest change, just as there are people suffering from aphantasia who lack inner images (visual thoughts), and anendophasia where they lack an inner voice. That is, an _X_ isn't always ubiquitous for everyone, but as long as it is present for the majority...
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[Roosters for ever]

The thread title is "Is time something that really exists?"

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but to me it seems fairly obvious that events don't all happen at once.

Just as if space, (described by the other three dimensions) didn,t exist, everything would be compacted together. Perhaps the question needing to be asked is, "Is time fundamental?"

 

[Olga]

Just as if space, (described by the other three dimensions) didn,t exist, everything would be compacted together. Perhaps the question needing to be asked is, "Is time fundamental?"

А точка - это что такое? Не пространство? Тогда что это?