Does time consist of only a past and a future

According to Albert Einstein "Everything's relative. Speed, mass, space and time are all subjective. Nor are age, motion or the wanderings of the planets measures that humans can agree on anymore; they can be judged only by the whim of the observer."

My question is there only a past and a future? Does the present even exist? As I write this the first part of the paragraph is already in the past and my next sentence is still in the future. We all talk about "Living in the present" but does it really exist at all?

Have we been looking at time the wrong way? In the three minutes or so that it took to write this, everything has changed. The clocked is ticking but not standing still. We talk about current events but by the time they are brought up and discussed aren't they already in the past? So guess I just want to know what the present is?

I think totally different than you.

The only thing that is actually real is the present. All your memories are your brain interpreting things in the present. Everything you experience is in the present. The future? The thought is your mind interpreting the future right now...the present. The past, is your mind interpreting memories in right now.

Your question may rest here. Infinity is impossible for the human mind to totally grasp no-matter what anyone tells you. You may be able to say infinity. You may know what it means. But comprehending it is different than that. The present, could very well boil down to a point. A point of infinite fineness. Much like the max height of an object you throw is only experienced for that one instant.

Good thoughts actually.

Hmmm I was just thinking, how do we actually measure the present ? cos like jeeze louise sad, as soon as you write/think something its already in the past. Technically if time is a DIMENSION there wouldnt be no present would there ?

Time as you're thinking of it is a human invention, it doe snot physically exist.

Let's say that I pick up a lighter and mvoe it to the other side of my desk. There is no 'past' in which the lighter existed at the other end of the desk. All that exists are the electrical and chemical impulses in my brain that remember that event.

So, as was said, all that exists is the present. Time, as we measure it, is simply events. The past is nothing more than memories.

Hawkings does describe 'orthoganal time' that is neither present nor future. I don't even begin to understand it. I think its got nothing to do with 'alternatre realities' either.

From what I have learned of this subject, I believe the thread author is right, we as perceptual being can only live in the Past and/or Future as we cannot persieve the present in real time there is always some delay.

time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the fuuuuutuuuuure


I've always thought of time along the lines of a road we are movin down, where the future is constantly moving into the present, which is constantly moving into the past, and there really isn't a precise present, so I guess I see things more like JL

You are wrong NYGDAN. You can understand hawkings view.

His view is very simple. Every consciousness experiences its own time relevant to its motion through space. It does not coincide with anyone elses time. What you percieve as a year, could be 10 years to someone else, though you both would feel time moving appropriately. I guess it is hard to understand fully, but it is definitely within your grasp.

Seapeople, so what you are saying is that a day is a day, but that same said day feels different lengths to different people? So how can a day be a day if the time span is different. I am soooo confused!

Originally posted by jeeze louise
Seapeople, so what you are saying is that a day is a day, but that same said day feels different lengths to different people? So how can a day be a day if the time span is different. I am soooo confused!

Because its all relative according to Einstien. Lets take an extreme example. Lets say there are two people falling in towards the event horizon of a black hole(doesn't matter what type). One person is close then the other, as each person gets closer time starts to slow down as they keep accelorating towards the singularity. When the closest person gets to a certain point time will almost cease to exist for that person while the observer who is farther from the black hole will persieve the other as being frozen in time. It's very wierd stuff but its been proven with Atomic clocks on the ISS. The time dialation is only very small in this case but on the ISS the Atomic Clock moves slightly slower then the one on earth as it is moving faster.

Wouldent all of this make time travel impossible? As it would be impossible, or seem impossible anyway to catchup to the future or past?

Originally posted by jeeze louise
Wouldent all of this make time travel impossible? As it would be impossible, or seem impossible anyway to catchup to the future or past?

To put it simply, science does not know for sure yet. There are literally hundreds of solutions to the time travel problem yet only a few seem even remotely possible. In actuallity you can travel into the future faster then normal. All you would need to do is increase your speed relative to Earth. This is just a rough approximation, but lets say you are in a spacecraft going 3/4th the speed of light. Time for you will seem to travel at the same rate yet when you get back say from a 6 year journey(to you that is) you get back to earth only to find out 600 years has passed by on Earth. Of course those numbers are arbitrary as I didn't crunch any number(which I do not know how to do). I believe also that if you manage to go faster then the speed of light then you would actually start to move backward in time, allthough to achieve that you would have to get around the infinite mass problem(ie the closer an object with mass gets to the speed of light the more mass it gains until it gains infinit mass preventing said object from reaching the speed of light wierd huh) So to answer your question is it Impossible? Alot of Scientists will say no it isn't practically possible, but most stop short to say its completely impossible mostly because of Einstiens theories.

[edit on 9-2-2005 by sardion2000]

OK, Einstein time theory is wrong and here is why.

First of all time does not exist. Time is just a measure of how long it takes for use to go around the sun. What exist is the speed of light. Time travel is not possible. and if it is it will never be done because if it were possible then someone in the future would have come to us. The only thing that exist is the present. the future is ahead and has not happened. and what happens in the past does not happened again unless we reacted.

NOw back to the speed of light. We travel under the speed of light there for we older. If we were to travel at the speed of light we would be neutral. we will not age or get younger. Now if we go above the speed of light we will start getting younger. that is how things in the universe work. NOw if we can just find a material that will withstand the speed of light we possibly live forever. But there is much research that needs to be done in this subject. But I do believe that my theory is right.

Originally posted by jeeze louise
According to Albert Einstein "Everything's relative. Speed, mass, space and time are all subjective. Nor are age, motion or the wanderings of the planets measures that humans can agree on anymore; they can be judged only by the whim of the observer."

My question is there only a past and a future? Does the present even exist? As I write this the first part of the paragraph is already in the past and my next sentence is still in the future. We all talk about "Living in the present" but does it really exist at all?

Have we been looking at time the wrong way? In the three minutes or so that it took to write this, everything has changed. The clocked is ticking but not standing still. We talk about current events but by the time they are brought up and discussed aren't they already in the past? So guess I just want to know what the present is?

____________________________________________________________
Let me explain something to you people, time as of some time now does not exsist and has and is been replaced by another theory: Dimentions. You may ask to a High-End Scientist in this matter.

Let me tell you why time does not exsist.
We all say that time does not Exsist in space. So, if you get any object and look at it well, think about it, what is it that you have around it??.. Isn't that space? Time is not more and just only that another way of messuring distance. Even Albert doubd about it.

Originally posted by zDynastyz
OK, Einstein time theory is wrong and here is why.

It's amazing how many people we have here who are smarter than Einstein

Einstein on "The Problem With Now"
"the experience of now means something special for people, something essentially different from the past and future, but that this important difference does not and cannot occur within physics. There is something essential about the now which is outside the realm of science"

Originally posted by sardion2000
From what I have learned of this subject, I believe the thread author is right, we as perceptual being can only live in the Past and/or Future as we cannot persieve the present in real time there is always some delay.

While I understand what you are saying and agree partially, I still believe the only true reality anyone can know is the present. Our memory is highly subjective and selective and never represents what actually happend. As for the future, well it has not happend yet otherwise it would not be the future, therefore the future never exists.

Time does have a future and a past - it's just that they're extremely hard to measure. I'll give an example to explain:
Imagine you are driving really fast down an infinitely long road. Your speed is constant and you are always travelling in a straight line. This is you travelling through time - you are always travelling in a straight line at a constant rate. Now - as you look onward you can see an obvious area that is coming up - the future. If you look behind you can see where you have been - the past. Now, the present is a little harder to measure and observe, but it is there nontheless. Look straight down (I dunno..imagine the car has a clear floor or something...). The present is always moving - it is the point at which the future becomes the past and is very hard to observe. However, it is definitely there, for if you stopped you could observe this very point - but we cannot stop time, so it seems a blur.
Sorry if that hasn't really answered your question...just an idea that suddenly popped into my head.

With that all said, I had another idea though. I mean given that the present is the point at which the future becomes the past, that must mean that there is a smallest unit of time - the time that it takes for the future to become past...just a theory.

Originally posted by deevee

Originally posted by zDynastyz
OK, Einstein time theory is wrong and here is why.

It's amazing how many people we have here who are smarter than Einstein

Einstein on "The Problem With Now"
"the experience of now means something special for people, something essentially different from the past and future, but that this important difference does not and cannot occur within physics. There is something essential about the now which is outside the realm of science"

what is your point. did you know that Steven Hawkins prove one of einstein theory wrong. Who is to say that everything else he said is true. You just don't understand what I am saying because your intelligence is limited to so little. I won't expect you to understand any obscure concepts.

I'm no scientist, but it seems there is a present, but we never observe it as human beings. Everything we see has already happened, as it takes time to get to our brain. So, we live in the present, but as soon as the brain tells us what we see and hear and smell, it's already over.

That is, if time even exists.

[edit on 13-2-2005 by steggyD]

Now really think about it. It takes time, it takes nerve impulses in the brain. By the "time," we think it is the present, it is already gone. We are actually in the future right now, but we have not caught up to it. When we do it is already gone.

Now breathe deeply and really give it some thought. Our actual physical self is really a measurable timespace in the future. Perhaps our mathematicians and physiologists, doctors and physicists could give us a better clue. But it seems too simple that there is a delay in nerve impulses that actuate what we know to be the present situation.

Einstein wrote to the effect that time and space are integral to consciousness.

Pardon me for any redundancy with prior postings.