Maxila
However even you agree the empirical evidence of times existence can only be found in the observations of energy (in any form); therefore although you say time exists in its absence, without empirical evidence that statement is tantamount to faith.
Hardly faith. Every observation of time has certain characteristics, IE that the MORE energy you have in a specific area, the SLOWER time passes. Agreed? So why would you assume that at low levels of energy(when observations tell you time should be least affected)time would suddenly disappear? The logical assumption, based on observation, is that time passes fastest when it is least effected by energy, because that's what observations tell us all the way down to the point you can't measure it any more. That's not a matter of faith, that is expecting that trends continue to that null point. What mechanism do you propose to affect one of the dimensions of spacetime to the point that it disappears? Motion? It only dilates time, making it pass slower. Mass, ditto. Energy? Same. So it is deduced that time passes fastest where it is affected least, and that is in the absence of events. And our ability or inability to measure it is irrelevant. The observations we do have indicate that that deduction is the most likely one, absent positive evidence otherwise.
we can only show it to exist when we can define a space (room to change position) and energy that could change position within it
Yes, we can only measure time using the energy in the area, true. But when the energy drops to nothing it just leaves time passing at it's greatest possible rate, unhindered by any dilation. That is exactly what every observation we CAN make tells us to expect. That we can no longer measure it is not a reason to think it ceases to pass, it does that at lightspeed and at the Event Horizon, both of which are all the way on the other side of that scale of energy. All the points on that graph of energy/time's rate point toward my conclusion, not yours.
Undefined
Did you mean to imply an ABSOLUTE UNIVERSAL MAXIMUM 'TIME RATE' or some such, mate? It sounds like it.
Actually, there is no such thing as empty space, even the hardest vacuum has constant activity on the quantum scale. There is no privileged frame where anyone could say they were motionless, except to themselves.So the maximum rate is never reached(and like lightspeed, close doesn't count), it is largely theoretical and all of it is relative. But every other measurement of time's rate done in space with more mass/energy in it will be slower than that done in deepest, darkest hard vacuum. All the way down to the minimum level of energy possible, thus the highest POSSIBLE rate. An Absolute Universal Maximum "Time Rate" could only exist in a completely empty Universe, but you couldn't possibly measure time at all there.
I also hark back to an earlier (correct) observation of yours regarding the "lightyears" convention as a measure of astronomical scale 'space distance', and I make the observation that the only way that 'space' related to 'time' in any way (ie, your reference to the 'spacetime' convention/model) is that WE apply an overlay of MOTION of light and observe the 'measure' of a certain distance with reference to ANOTHER motion standard time 'unit' (ie, light YEAR, light SECOND etc) in order to give a value to that distance in those terms. The space distance is what it is. The measurement standards are already established. And we use light MOTION across that space as a convenient 'vehicle/device' for creating 'astronomical space distance measurement conventions. At no stage have we 'equated' or directly connected' any 'time' with that space. We merely compared that light motion with a pre-existing time standard motion (second/year etc) and called that distance traversed in said elapsed time unit standard a LIGHTSECOND/LIGHTYEAR etc.
It's called a light cone. It is a two dimensional chart of a four dimensional truth. Nothing in this Universe can be seen, reached or experienced at a faster than light speed. Whatever units we use to describe that speed are for our convenience, but the velocity itself is built into existence. We see the entire Universe at various distances in past time, not where the things we see now reside, not what their current attributes are. And in a very real way that is our reality because we will have to deal with them as the light arrives, not as they now exist. The things you see 13 billion lys away probably don't exist in the same form today and is likely more like 40 lys away due to 13 billion years of expansion AFTER the light we currently see left. You are seeing everything as they were in the past, how can that NOT involve time? Time is also a distance in spacetime, we see everything further and further back in time the farther out we look.
And, as to being built in, the LHC provides evidence every day that time, space and lightspeed are tied together at the basic level. When a proton is accelerated to lightspeed, it's energy is a very precisely known value. It takes a city's worth of electrical power to accelerate just a few heavy ions to 90+ percent of lightspeed. Do that with two streams going in opposite directions and the collisions occur at just less than lightspeed(thus illustrating the lightspeed limit and Relativity. .99 lightspeed meeting .99 lightspeed coming from the opposite direction still gives you closing rates between them at less than lightspeed). Those collisions knock loose whole families of exotic particles, but to study them they must make it to and through the detector(about 20 feet in diameter). The problem is these particles are very, very shortlived(femto-seconds). Normally, at non-relativistic speeds, these particles can hardly move at all before they decay, they couldn't make it from one side of a molecule to the other. Simply speeding up the particles gets you to a few inches. But factor in the time dilation at near lightspeed and they go tens of feet. That's because time and lightspeed(any speed of anything with mass, actually, but at "normal" speeds the effects are minimal, it gets extreme near lightspeed)are tied together in an inverse relationship, fastest in one is slowest in the other. Lightspeed and space are also tied together, a round proton is a flat disk at near lightspeed, it's dimension of spacetime is shrunk in the direction of travel. It's not just an appearance, it's actual spacetime dimension is shrunk, it would still see itself as being as round as ever.
http://phys.org/news/2011-12-physicists-ultrahigh-energy-proton-black-disk.html
Grumpy
