PROOF: Time is an ILLUSION!

Your use of the word "eternity" in your argument implies lots and lots and lots of "time". In face you cannot explain the concept of "eternity" without referring to "time" somewhere in the explanation.

Originally posted by insite
This may seem stupid and I may not have the intelligence to comprehend this thread but here's my two cents on it anyway:

So if energy has been around for eternity, you cannot measure time when energy has been around an infinite number of units? That still doesn't explain how we can see energy changing states over time all around us right here on Earth. Is that not what time really is but a measure of the way energy changes over time? If we do have time, and time is infinite (as you well illustrate nothing can exist if we have infinite time behind us) who's to say that we are not just at some point in the infinite? I don't see how that point is so illogical. Yes there is inifinte time behind us, but we are merely the present state of energy in its infinite life.

Energy has been around forever, I agree. But it is always changing shape/texture/whatever else we cannot perceive. Can't you just believe in the entirety of it? We have eternity behind us, but that is just because there was no beginning. We can measure time with the way energy changes over its units of length. The fact that there was no beginning, IMO, is trivial.

I look forward to your enlightenment.

But that's the whole problem. We can NEVER have eternity behind us. Yes, there was no "beginning". And yes we can measure changes in energy and call it "time" but it is only OUR perception! Perception can be very wrong. We cannot be anywhere in the middle of eternity, because we had to GET here somehow. We can never GET here by going through eternity, that means to NEVER get here. Unless there is no eternity behind us, but it is in fact finite. But if it impossible for it to be FINITE, because that means there was NOTHING before it was "created", and you can not get SOMETHING out of nothing. It does makes sense if you think about all of this... I know it doesn't conform to human perception.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
Time is uni-directional. It only moves forward. Therefore there must be a beginning. The proof is entrophy. A reverse would require the addition of energy to obtain the former higher energy states. As you stated you cannot get something out of nothing.

But that there is a begining does not mean there needs to be an end.

Infinity lies in our future, not our past.

But it cannot lie only in the future. If it doesn't lie in the past, that means we came out of nothing? Where there is a beginning, there is most definitely an end. Where there IS no beginning, there IS no end.

Originally posted by groingrinder
Your use of the word "eternity" in your argument implies lots and lots and lots of "time". In face you cannot explain the concept of "eternity" without referring to "time" somewhere in the explanation.

Exactly, that's why I started with saying "Let's first ASSUME there is time, and then we can prove it doesn't exist".

I used the word "eternity" first to show what happens if time does exist, and then I showed that what happens CAN NOT possibly happen, so therefore time must NOT exist. Our perception is different, and we do perceive what looks like "past" "present" and "future".

We perceive time, but it's like a radio. We only listen to one station at a time, but we KNOW they are all playing at the same time.

what causes us to percieve time is simple... its a simple explanation to explain things... the same reason we have god any various superstitions... to give us the illusion that as humans we really understand... which we dont...

i agree time doesnt exsist but i feel the explanation is alot more complex than what you have posted but i believe our minds cant comprehend the logic... yet.. one day our brains will evolve to understand the complex reasonings behind time... or lack thereof... great post man!

Time is an illusion amongst many we experience in this existance. I have to agree with you.

Originally posted by specialasianX
what causes us to percieve time is simple... its a simple explanation to explain things... the same reason we have god any various superstitions... to give us the illusion that as humans we really understand... which we dont...

i agree time doesnt exsist but i feel the explanation is alot more complex than what you have posted but i believe our minds cant comprehend the logic... yet.. one day our brains will evolve to understand the complex reasonings behind time... or lack thereof... great post man!

Thanks.. and yes it's an explanation for our perceptions, which are flawed. And you'd be surprised how simple the explanation for the lack of time can be... someone once said, everything GENIUS is SIMPLE. Everything GREAT is complicated.

No I didn't just call myself a genius, but I do think that there doesn't have to be a super complex explanation that only scientists can understand.

I do know something... and take this with a grain of salt... but very soon our perceptions will be adjusted. We shall once again see that time is an artificially-created illusion. We will no longer need it, as it is a form of control. If you are a timeless creature, you are much more in control of yourself than if you depend on time.

Also it is a physical change in our bodies that create this illusion of time. That's all I'll say for now. No there are no sources to back this up, so that's why I asked you take it with a huge pile of salt! Have patience, there's only a few "years" left anyway. Humans have been waiting for hundreds of thousands of years for this event, so what's a few more years!

The simplest explanation for the argument that time does not really exist is this:

Despite our beliefs and experience, we have access to all events in our existance both past, present and future, right now!

Furthermore, we have access to everyone else's too!

It is not easy to access if you do not believe this or can conceive of this.

I cannot access the entirety of existance but only a small part so far but I do know that it is possible to access the whole of the universe.

Yup our minds are ABSOLUTELY unlimited in scope and potential. Everything that has ever happened or will ever happen (since there's no time, it's all simultaneous) exists inside our minds. It's like a huge encrypted file. If we learn to tap into it, we are free. Only partially is also great, since it is a start.

I read a thread a few days ago about someone who could read people's minds and get answers on tests without knowing the stuff, and felt guilty. One should never feel guilty when you can receive information like this. The guilt is coming from SOCIETY and PROGRAMMING that tells you explicitly that you have no right to do this, it is invasion of privacy AND cheating. The guilt should be dealt with, NOT the ability!

If someone secretly hates him but doesn't want him to find out, and he reads their minds and finds out, it is not HIS fault, but the other person's fault.. why hate? Guilt is one of the main things that inhibits us...

i agree... once our perceptions are tuned to be receptive to knew logic and concepts a true understanding of time will seem so simple... we'd be like 'i cant believe we didnt see that before' we'll also understand many other things that will seem like the were right under our noses but the reality is we simply cant percieve these concepts as our brains aren't receptive to them.. for those who dont understand... its like a cat cant percieve abstract art as they have no understanding of abstract concepts... humans alone have this perception and there are many more 'concepts' that humans cant percieve yet... but i feel we are on the way... and yes, soon we will have new perceptions that we can 'play' with

[Edited on 18-1-2004 by specialasianX]

I have always known that 'Time' was invented by people in order to give semblance of order to their lives. They based their concept of time on the movement of the celestial bodies and seasons of the earth.

'Time' itself is a created concept and not something that can be proved to exist. In fact, lilblam has proved the opposite. It does not exist, it just 'appears' to exist.
Hence it is an illusion.

Originally posted by Pisky
I have always known that 'Time' was invented by people in order to give semblance of order to their lives. They based their concept of time on the movement of the celestial bodies and seasons of the earth.

'Time' itself is a created concept and not something that can be proved to exist. In fact, lilblam has proved the opposite. It does not exist, it just 'appears' to exist.
Hence it is an illusion.

Not to knock your theory but I'm 48 yrs old and there are these things called wrinkles that seem to mark the passing of time. I don't particularly like them but their there and no matter how much I would like to believe their just an illusion their there.

Ah but time does exist in our physical realm, in 3d but overall it is an illusion.

I always like to give this example that we can all relate to: consider the earth, we all believe it is round. We have seen pictures of the earth and if we ever took a long plane flight we would know that the earth is round, correct?

But chances are that wherever we are it likely seems flat. But of course it isn't because there is a slight curvature to all the earths' surface.

It is really a matter of perspective based upon our ability to conceive it and our knowledge of the truth.

Your use of the word "eternity" in your argument implies lots and lots and lots of "time". In face you cannot explain the concept of "eternity" without referring to "time" somewhere in the explanation....groingrinder

That is your opinion, eternity is not measured, it is a state of being* eternity is also in another dimension, not this one. If time could not be altered, or was universal, meaning that it could be synchronized anywhere in the universe, meaning time was uniform, then you could say yes. Therefore, it just cannot be.

[Edited on 18-1-2004 by Knightmare]

Lilblam, while it was a good enough 'proof', (btw, that would not ever hold up as a real proof in real life, just because it makes logical sense. You can use simple logic to make 1=2, and not through division by zero.) you make a seriously fatal err, or, your theory relies on this problem.

Regardless of your disclaimer, God must be brought into this. Not the being of god for an explanation, but the question of the being of god. No one knows what created it. No one knows that everything was created, or not. The big bang did not necessarily start with energy from the infinite past, it easily could have converted energy from mass. This energetic potential could have existed forever, but, see, you cannot say it exists forever. There is no question of god. Time does not exist. and call it a flawless proof. We really don't know if god existed, we really don't know for absolute sure that creation is impossible. There are fun theories circulating right now about high energy tachyons all coming together at a common point where the universe had collapsed those 13.7 billion years ago, and literally setting off the bomb. There are also other theories about natural fluctuations in dimensional walls that eventually led to the collapse of 6 dimensions, and the expansion of 4, these 4 expanding caused the creation of matter, because matter could now exist as we know it.

Like I said, it is a good enough theory, and if god really doesn't exist for 100% sure, and if energy and mass and existence have really existed for an infinite amount of time, then technically, yes, time between 2 points compared to the infinite amount of time would make time as we perceive technically zero, but the problems abound. That doesn't disprove time, that proves that time exists beyond a doubt, just that the time we perceive is technically not true time. Even if it did disprove time completely, what dfference does it make? If time works the way we think it does, or if it works a near infinitely more complex way, and has the same effects as the way we think it does normally, or if it doesn't exist, yet our normal universe continues without change, then it doesn't matter!

Going out on a technical chance and getting frankly emotional in a vain attempt to prove that time cannot exist is senseless. It is something that is not to be proven or dispoven, at least not yet, and at present, it would make no true difference on our lives either way, so lets not care!

Thanks for that insightful comment. But I still care! You may not care, but you cannot tell people "Since proving this makes absolutely no difference to your perception, how about you do something useful and prove something that DOES make a difference for a change!".
Many mathematical proofs and concepts don't do anything physically for us, but theoretically and on paper and of course logically they are huge leaps and very important.

What could be the application of knowing that time doesn't exist? Well right now we have none, but you never know what the "future" holds.

Time does exist for us, humans, but for the universe at large it doesn't. That's all I'm saying. It makes a huge difference to me personally, and one day it will impact everyone! Just NOT yet.

Very interesting point about time! I have always wondered similar things, like this.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm an aspiring theoretical physicist myself, and mathematics is one of my chief loves, knowing phi to the 8th digit though I'm never going to use it practically, and being absolutely fascinated by the prime-pattern when you place numbers on a spiral such as this:

73
72 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
71 42 21 22 23 24 25 26 51
70 41 20..7...8...9..10 27 52
69 40 19..6...1...2..11 28 53
68 39 18..5...4...3..12 29 54
67 38 17 16 15 14 13 30 55
66 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 56
65 64 63 62 61 60 59 58 57

Only to an area in the upper millions, and then look at the pattern, it is crazy!

But the point is, I know what you mean, its just that this is a step towards a proof, and it is really a step towards the absolute destruction of all scientific knowledge. If we made time nonexistent, and were 100% sure of it, ho, boy, heads would roll.. It would be exciting, but I'd rather revolutionize something other than the existence of time.. if it actually gets proven, I'll be exited.

EDIT: Spiral changed.

[Edited on 18-1-2004 by Viendin]

You haven't really proved anything...time as we define it is just the passing of intervals marked off by certain events

Travelling forward through "time" is just like moving through space ini how we perceive it, Einsteins theory of relativity and that everything is different from certain points of reference...we cannot detect speed, movement, etc. through space without something to guage it by, a point of reference. We have no idea how fast we are truely moving through space, nor through time...we know that time and space exist, we just cant measure them without points of reference, space could be infinite as well, but we know it exists.

Ultimately we cannot know where we "are" in space, time, or how fast we are moving without reference points, but if this proves that space and time dont exist, then we wouldnt be here today..

I love your explanation. So simple. I thought about it for awhile and coundn't really disprove it. After reading some other peoples post I had to ccnsider that the universe might not be made up of energy. I guess I don't know enough about physics to know whether its truth or not. Then again i've never really trusted science as just being truth. Always though of it as just theory. I like to think that anyone could do anything if they just had the right perception. This would cause most of physics to be thrown right out of the window. But our perception is so warped. We need to evole our minds then I guess.

Anyway, love the post. Have been watching your replies for awhile now. We need more people who can think outside of the box.