After all.. What do you mean by Time?

Ok so ive seen multiple discussions on "if time exists".. and even more that end up as such.. and some that touch on it.. so im just curious:

What do you think time is..
What is Your deffinitition of time?

This is basic. Please keep it as such. No hour long stories and explinations. Please do not quote. Put this in your own words. Use your own thoughts. And please remember the universal understanding that you can't define a word by placing the word in the deffinition.

I will start.

To me, and I'll keep it as basic as I can:

Time is the human perception of motion or change, or lack of motion or change.

Feel free to state your deffinition and to say if you think im at least partly accurate or not. Also feel free to state if your think im entirely accutate or partly. However, I dont wish this to be a debate, just a brainstorm of ideas.

Thanks, all!

-G

ima bunp this one.. someone has to have something for this..
^_^

-G

In my opinion, time is a filter that limits and regulates energy transference in the universe. Just like how a dam controls the amount of water that trickles through or how information transfer on your motherboard is limited by the size of its bus. We perceive time by observing it's affect on matter e.g. time limits the speed at which the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Another idea would be that time is the ratio between how fast the universe moves compared to how fast we think. I remember seeing in a documentary about how humans think a lot slower than flys, that's why it's so hard to catch them, because to them you are moving really slow. It's the same with mice and elephants, to the mice elephants are moving super slow and to the elephants the mice are moving super fast. I guess that's also how personal time works, as you move closer to the speed of light you slow down. This also means that you think slower, therefore, you don't notice that time has slowed down.

Finally a reply.. Thanks much.

so we have..:

time filters, limits and regulates energy transference in the universe.

more of what time effectively does, not so much a deffinition, but none the less interesting.

and

"time is the ratio between how fast the universe moves compared to how fast we think."

how can you measure how fast "we" think? one person may think faster than the other.. do we say in general? take an average? your talking about speeds.. speeds usually can be mathmatically calculated from what ive seen. its a great conception but not fundamental enough for our lack of understanding of time, i think.

more conceptions by me ^_^

-G

time is exactly what we perceive time to be.
we labeled a phenomenon with the title "time" and thats what it is..

it exists?

Time is the name we give to continued existence/continued perception of reality.

Because we continue to exist, there must be a way of measuring that continuation.

In otherwords, we have no real idea of what time is or where it came from, other than that it's a very human ideal.

Because of this more than a few people have alluded to the idea that time does not infact exist.

Time is your speed in relation to the speed of light in a vacuum.

"time is exactly what we perceive time to be."

time is as time does? did mama always say? jus poking fun..
are you saying the deffinition of time is different to each individual?
or are you saying straight it doesnt exist...
also.. dont use the word in your deffinitiion.. it can be like saying
"time is time"


"Time is the name we give to continued existence/continued perception of reality."

Interesting. very much so.. and ill agree-ish to that.. but not your other
statements.. i'd say time is not an ideal, and would continue without humanity, or any life at all.

i dont mean what does the word "time" mean.. but the concept i guess..
you say its just a word we give to something.. what is the something?

but you say more than simple words.. and i think i agree with the last statement... - ish.. ^_^


"Time is your speed in relation to the speed of light in a vacuum."

extremely interesting. this ill have to think about. thank you for this reply, lonemaverick

-G

I replied to a simlar post a few months ago.

The way I look at it, we treat time in two ways :

a) Time as a measure of change. eg how much time does it take to walk somewhere

b) (And this is the more imprortant one) Time as change itself. That is, time as the driving force of change. Its what allows us to eperiance distinct 'moments'.

I think perhaps we need seperate terms for time a and b, but at the moment we use the term interchangibly in both cases which I think is where the confusion comes from in these discussions.

This thread seems to cover a lot of the other time threads also. Interesting reading other peoples opinions :
www.abovetopsecret.com...


[edit on 28-10-2007 by gold32]

reply to post by gold32


I can say I fairly agree with everything you said.

The thread you linked to i thought as inadequate; one reason i made this one. I'll agree it was interesting though. ^_^

-G

Time is nothing. There is no future, there is no past, at least not in a solid context.

The future and the past only remain in our minds, with memories and thoughts.

Time in itself is nothing, having no solid ground. Merely a word used to describe the feeling of memories and imagination. Time is a way to make yourself feel good about the unknown, saying all due things will pass in time.

My defintion of time is as follows.

Time only exists in our minds, you and i can dimiss time, but in doing so we dimiss our life, losing track of where we've been and when we were there. Without time we are lost, and know not they day of our demise. A beautiful mind and world it is without time.

so if all humans died right now.. time would no longer exist.... there would be no future.. since its all in our minds.. everything would ultimately cease to exist? cmon spaceman i expected more from you ^_-

-G

Originally posted by GlahES
so if all humans died right now.. time would no longer exist.... there would be no future.. since its all in our minds.. everything would ultimately cease to exist? cmon spaceman i expected more from you ^_-

-G

Well in short you're correct. This goes back to the classic example of, "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a noise." If no one is around to record the events of the day, then what good are the events?

A war would not be remembered if all the partakers were killed. A novel would fail at its purpose if people didn't read it. The point being made, is that without a living being that can understand (and sometimes, not understand) what is happening, what good is it to happen?

And im sure you'll bring up, that humans were not alive during "The big bang", so does this mean it did not happen? And my answer would be this.

Yes, it means it did not happen. Give me solid proof that such an occurance happened. Give me visible clues that this happened. Scientist accept the the Bbt is exactly that.. a theory.

And other argument is that humans, themselves created the theory of a past, present, and future. All three are ideas developed by the human brain. A dog does not say, "I wish i lived 30 years ago" or "Wonder what the future holds". Only man proclaims such quotations.

So in short, you are correct, if man ceased to exist, time would cease to exist, or at the least the idea of time.


[edit on 6-11-2007 by spaceman16]

yes if nothing percieves time.. time is not percieved..
if the tree falls and noone hears the sound.. noone heard the sound.

you argue that noone heard the sound.,. and noone could have because there was no sound.. because where was never a tree.. so a tree never fell.. and if your not in sight of a tree when you read this.. than trees dont exist.. to you..

the perception of something does not decide if it exists.

bleh

-G

Originally posted by GlahES
yes if nothing percieves time.. time is not percieved..
if the tree falls and noone hears the sound.. noone heard the sound.

you argue that noone heard the sound.,. and noone could have because there was no sound.. because where was never a tree.. so a tree never fell.. and if your not in sight of a tree when you read this.. than trees dont exist.. to you..

the perception of something does not decide if it exists.

bleh

-G

No bleh's. You're understanding what I mean.

The question still remains, If i cant see something, does that mean it exists?

If you say yes. Prove it.
If you say no.Prove it.

We can think faster than the speed of light.

You see a car moving down the road.
At some point that car will reach the stop sign at the end of the road.
We know this in advance.

Dosnt that mean that we can think faster then the speed of light ?

Hi ! I am TT , My Definition about ( TIME ) is ' MONEY' ! If you do not have " MONEY " You will have no time to live ' you'll get starve and DIE ... end of story !

Time exists.
We can see the effects of it every day.

Age and growth are main results of time. Also the main indicator of time is sequence. Do you not do everything in sequence?

If time didn't exist, you wouldn't do things in sequence, they would just all be done at once. Its really silly to debate the existence of time.

Its the main factor in the universe...
Time, matter, and space.

[edit on 6-11-2007 by ChronMan]

Originally posted by spaceman16


The question still remains, If i cant see something, does that mean it exists?

If you say yes. Prove it.
If you say no.Prove it.

Yes.
Can you see wind?
Can you see emotions?
Can you see Thoughts?

They all exist without visual perception.

www.geocities.com...

Alot of the same ideas, im trying to hit at.

One i like im particular, about the debate about the present.

"That leaves us with only the Present - the ever changing Present."

How can we be in the present, if the moment you say you are in the present, your words are in the past.


"In a effort to cope with the change, we have invented time. "

No, its not as hard as you think to argue time.