Clarification on Time and What Creates it

My main purpose for posting this is merely to have other people brainstorm their thoughts about this, maybe help refine my ideas. What is time? Can it be truely calculated? Is it really about what happens through prediction, or is it what happens through chance that makes the difference in time? I did write this, it is not from anyone else but me. If i got anythin you believe to be wrong... PLEASE point it out.

An Intro to Time

Certain things must be examined about time before it can be referenced in a theory about predestination and fate.
The question surrounding time isn’t necessarily if it exists, but rather what it is. We, as humans, depend on time for nearly everything we do: when we go to bed or wake up, when we go to work or school; it seems everything in a communal setting is based on when the sun sets. Our perception on time isn’t wrong exactly, maybe just flawed. Can time be shaped, molded, and bent, or is time constant and must everything that time is involved in be shaped, molded, and bent around it? It’s impossible to give a definite answer, and realistically it is somewhat hard to imagine one. The truth is, we need time. It exists and we need to use it to the best of our ability before our time runs out.
Einstein helped show us that everything is relative. He wanted people to realize that what you think about something changes as its surrounding environment changes. A classic mind experiment created by Einstein can demonstrate this. Imagine riding a roller coaster while looking at a non-digital wristwatch. As your speed increases, your perception of how fast the second hand is moving changes. You should be seeing the second hand go much slower than a bystander, who, also looking at your watch as you maintain a high velocity, sees the watch as going much faster as the one on their arm. This is due to relativity, a key part in time. The faster the individual object is, the slower everything else is in comparison, including time. Does this change actual time, or only time’s perception?
Time is sometimes described as moving at different rates, dependent upon a person’s perception. One who is bored or undergoing anticipation may think that time is tauntingly sluggish, whereas someone that is having fun or sleeping may not realize the great deal of actual time that has passed versus their perception of actual time. Those that can’t wait for something have to wait longer to get it than those who are indifferent. This may be due to a more psychological concept. The more we want something, the harder it seems to get, and inversely the less we want something, the easier it seems to obtain it. As for sleep, some people look forward to it, and others think it’s a waste of time and would never actually sleep if their bodies didn’t depend so heavily on it. It’s hard to admit, but practically one-third of our life is interrupted by sleeping. Where has all the time gone in those eight hours? Besides the few random dreams remembered by the average person, there is nothing “eventful” happening during sleep. Time consumes our reality and places us in a false realm of existence, never again to be remembered consciously.
Is time travel possible? This is a question loved by both media and scientists alike. A vast majority of people would jump at the opportunity to go back in time to fix a mistake, or prevent some tragedy from occurring. Even if everyone is content with their current life (and past), it seems plausible that they are curious about their future. Who isn’t? Historians and archaeologists would use time travels not only for research, but also proof. Is anyone up for preventing the JFK assassination, or what about 9/11? Suddenly scientists could see how dinosaurs lived with their very own eyes, and lost cities and archeological sites could be visited when they were at their greatest. The possibilities are endless, and with this come great deals of concern.
If time travel is possible, who is to say that the past can’t be manipulated and skewed for the benefits of one person? Power-hungry government officials could travel back with modern technology and take over the world (who knows if maybe this already even happened). Radical religious extremists could go back and create a mass-genocide, wiping out thousands, millions, or possibly even billions of lives, all because of time travel. Everyone that would have been born as offspring may fail to exist after this point, likely changing the lives of everyone you know, or could know. Time travel is potentially very dangerous, yet could also be inversely advantageous. If we were to supplement the past with modern technology, by the time we live in now has arrived for the past, the technology will have been perfected and improved upon many times.
Assuming time travel is possible, it would be extremely impractical. The amount of energy it would take to convert all the mass traveling in time to energy itself would be astronomical, let alone the amount of energy needed to transport the energy in a contained form and put it through space with disregards to time seems next to impossible. Pretending it would even be able to be done would also require finding an equal amount of energy to return to the present. If the past or future can’t provide this, you are stuck in a time in which you don’t belong. Assume also that you exist in another time that yourself from that time also exists in. The Conservation Laws say that “matter (and energy) cannot be created nor destroyed”, and seem applicable here. We can’t just take matter from one time and place it in another; it would require taking mass in one time, destroying it, and then creating it in another time. Any creation or destruction with either mass or energy could, debatably, create a form of chaos unexplainable, or rather, unimaginable to us now. The risk is high, practicality low, and the plausibility of time travel may not be existent—for the past.
Assuming we are in the present, it may be possible to travel forward in time (merely instantaneously creating mass from one point in time, simultaneously creating it in another, future time). By traveling forward in linear time, however, it probably would not be possible to travel back, and thus would create an almost pointless journey.
Time is perceived differently by everyone, and cannot be briefly summarized. However, it is important to study these small details when looking at my journey in trying to justify and prove certain mathematical phenomena such as randomness and chance. Later, these terms will be used to describe things seemingly unexplainable such as luck, spontaneity, instinct, and things such as predestination and fate.



The Variables That Can Explain What Happens in Time:

Chance and Randomness
My comprehension of time, highly conceivable though not yet proven is that it works according to a series of mathematical equations. Time is representative of the past a, the present b, and the future c, where everything that happens translates into the equation of time. The past has already happened which would make it appear as a constant of time, but keep in mind that the past is constantly being added to from the present. The past can be described more accurately as [a+n limn->b], where n is a constantly changing point in the past, where everything before that point approaching, but not equating to, the present is considered. The present, would resemble something close to [b^xy limb->c], where the present is constantly being exponentially affected by x, that which could happen, and y, that which does happen, when the present approaches the future, but does not actually coincide with the future. The future is a little more complex, as ĉ=[x^h+z], x still being that which could happen, as x is exponentially affected by h, the human influence (which is unpredictable), and additive to z which is what will happen under mathematical explanation (i.e. the absolute determination of an outcome using precise physical notation). In theory, the “equation” to time is [t=r(a+n+bxy+^(xh+z))] where t is time as limn->b and limb>c and is all affected, respectfully, by randomness, chance (probability), luck, spontaneity, and instinct. Yes, it is confusing and likely imperfect, but it also may be one of the closest ways to explain something ineffable. It is now time to describe the mathematical instance known as chance and randomness.
Randomness is when there is no favorable outcome dependent upon the given variables that predicts a likely or unlikely result. No single outcome is favorable, and everything that can happen supposedly has an equal chance of actually happening. Chance, on the other hand, includes probability. This is when there are many variables that can affect the outcome, all of which point to a favorable possibility. For example, if the outcome of rolling a die was truly random then there would be an exact one in six chance that any of the possibilities would occur, that is, equally. In this case, the true proportion of actually rolling any given number on a die must always be precisely one sixth. And, as explained by the Law of Large Numbers, this appears to be correct, yet naturally it cannot be this way, except for one sixth of the time. For example, imagine you roll a die seven times. Even if you get one of every possible number, you are guaranteed to get at least one outcome that appears favorable to another. This already seems to defy the sole definition behind randomness, but there are also other ways to explain the near impossible reality of true randomness.
Now, we know there are many variables that must be taken into account in actually rolling a die. First, you must consider what face is in contact with the highest point of altitude. Then, you need to determine air resistance, friction, gravity, and things like wind and barometrics. Following would be the force and angle at which the die is being released at, as well as the point in the air at which it is being released at and the resultant plane at which it would land. All of this contributes, not to mention the actual weight of the die and manufactured variability. These are some of the few factors, that when duplicated exactly, should produce the same result every time. By every time, this means that the z in our equation is solved. Because it is next to impossible to achieve perfectly of duplicated results (as humans, not robots) all these variables make up a whole equation in its own, just for rolling the die. Here, the probability accounted for through the given variables equates to each number being rolled as approximately 1/6. If you were to try this experiment without looking to manipulate the variables you may get close to each die being rolled an equal amount of times, but the ratio will always be off by a little. This is because the outcome involves chance, not randomness.

Luck
Next to be explained is luck. For clarification, there is no good or bad luck. They are the same thing, and good or bad would just be an inspecific adjective placed in front of luck. Luck is actually very similar to chance. In a sense, luck is just a very specific incidence of chance. More or less, chance has a set of variables that can be both explained and calculated. For example, there is a definite one in some amount chance that you will win the lottery (remember that this is not random, as you can change the favored outcome by buying more lotto tickets than anyone else buys). It would be very lucky however to find yourself in a public bathroom and happen to notice a lotto ticket sticking out of the trash can, which then ends up being the winning ticket. There are far too many variables to calculate the actual chance of that happening, and so it can logistically be considered luck. Yes, you may be lucky in the sense that you won the lottery after buying only one ticket, but when it comes down to it there is a percentage placed in front of your chances of victory. Luck, though generally positive in connotation, can also describe the situation in which you were mailed a lottery ticket, but you were called away on an unexpected business trip that happened to take a week longer than planned. Then, upon returning home, you discovered you had the winning lottery ticket that had its claim date expire one hour before you ended up getting home. It sounds horrid, but it would still be quite a “lucky” situation.

Spontaneity
Spontaneity is a very hard concept to explain because it, like luck, includes a lot of variability. Spontaneity has to do with the tendencies of something to act the way it does. Spontaneous combustion is a good example. If an object has a combustible tendency when combined with another object, the chance that it will combust with that object is (or is very close to) one. It will happen. The when part of the equation is what makes spontaneity able to exist. If it is highly combustible and will randomly combust within five seconds, then we can assume that by six seconds it will have combusted. However, if time is truly a random variable in this case then what’s to say that it has combusted by four seconds, one second, or three one-hundredths of a second later? Spontaneity is what makes randomness possible, with respect to time (timing). This also means that if you had a friend that shouted out a seemingly random word, they’d actually be considered a spontaneous person, and not a random person. If they were thinking about pizza, there is a high chance that within the next few minutes, if they are to say anything at all, they would say pizza (or something closely related to pizza) at a random time.

Instinct
Instinct is much harder to explain than spontaneity. It is so hard to explain because it seems to be specific to that which lives and thinks, whereas spontaneity, chance, and possibly even randomness (and remotely, luck as well) seem to be applicable to other things in nature. Instinct is specific to that which lives, and is possibly genetically inherited. Instinct can defy chance and is different than luck, yet can make your decisions spontaneous. Imagine you are stranded in the woods and you lost your map. You are desperately trying to find your way home, and you know that your life is at stake. Perhaps you can somewhat visualize what little you remember of your map, and you think you should take a left and head north, but something tells you in the back of your mind to take a right and go south. Logistically you should follow what you can remember of your map and head north, but you decide instead (for no apparent reason) to go south. Fifteen minutes of hiking leads you to a highway and you successfully hitch a ride home. This would definitely be described as a somewhat random instance of instinct, but the problem is that this part of the equation does not seem to apply inversely. If you had decided to head south and you had, instead of hitching a ride, died from hypothermia, it doesn’t seem right to assume it was instinct that lead you there (maybe just “bad” luck). Also, if instinct is true extra-sensory perception that will kick in whenever you need help with surviving, then it shouldn’t fail, right? Possibly. It seems to be that instinct is true in concept, but also could just be synonymous for luck or randomness when applied to a person in specific environments or conditions.

If any of these mathematical terms and concepts exist, then presumably so does my version of time as well. As with many equations, some things do not seem to fit. Holes and asymptotes realistically will appear throughout the graph of time, sporadically and without control. Thanks for reading!

Nice essay, I enjoyed reading your ideas. I too have have thought about time and how we measure events and it seems to be relative to the star that we orbit. Seems only logical that there are many types of "time" occuring at the same "time" everywhere in the universe.

maybe time does not really exist outside the human experience of consciousness. Meaning there is no real way to prove it is a "thing" that can be understood or observed mathematically or otherwise.

I think of time as an experience created as an element of human consciousness- The experience only emerging around the human level (maybe monkeys experience time and other mammals? I cant say). But time is there as a way to consciously organize the constant moments that change one moment from the next to the next as a flux between new experiences gathered by the senses and the memories of past experience in the brain trying to put it in its place.

So really there are infinite "nows" and time only exists as a comparisson of one moment to another in relative terms to a conscious observer (the observer brings time to life, its not just a thing)

I did a search on google "time does not exist outside human consciousness"

and got this guys page, pretty accurate (from what I know) history of how science has approached the idea of time up to now....

C.D. Rollins

Barbour's universe consists of an infinite number of "eternal nows" stretching from the Big Bang to the end of the universe (either by heat death, or super contraction, sometimes called the Big Crunch). Time is merely an illusion created by the human consciousness, which only sees one "now" at a time, as it moves along through all of the "nows" that make up its life. Somewhere in Barbour's universe, which he calls Platonia, you are being born, attending your first day of school, going on your first date, and lying on your deathbed. However right now you are only aware of the you which is reading this essay and probably saying to yourself: "This guy has flipped his cork!"

S & F! Thank you for this essay. I really enjoyed reading your ideas and was particularly excited when I read your theoretical mathematical equation. You did, as you expected, get me to brainstorm a bit on my concept of time. Again, great essay. My mind is racing with ideas now.

I saw a good video on a time vortex they found down in antarctica. That may be something you'll wanna look into.

further away you get from this lil blue marble......and the less time you experience. Magnatism and mass the proaction force, and gravity the reaction force creates time or the perception therein.

Get rid of one of these in the equation and viola...no time. Time is a local issue not a galatic one. We'd perceive the passing of time even after we left earths gravity..only because we'd have a watch.

reply to post by PhysicsAdept


I do not believe in luck or chance. I feel everything is preordained. If it was not meant to happen, it would not have happened. Even if you "choose" to do something, the set of circumstances (dna/enviornment) that caused you to chose "this or that", were set in motion years before "you".

Time is an illusion. There is no present, as it is too brief.

One of the first commercials using subliminal messages broke the message down to 1/3000 of a second. My point being how do we gauge " the present"?

Im 40 and for me life has been like one long dream sequence,most of it gone and what I do remember is almost as an illusion

But, you know,this just is my opinion

reply to post by KSprepared


Oh cool, that sounds awesome! I'll look for it later. Just in case, would you happen to have a link for it?

reply to post by el1jah


It certainly woild be difficult to prove, considering we'd have to be conscience to prove it... which would completly go against the test haha. But what that guy says deoes make sense. I think definately a part of time ois man-made, due to our limited ability to percieve. Who knows though, then, if aliens percieve different time??

Explanation: Time is a byproduct of the underlying imperfection of everything... as perfection leaves no room for improvement!

Personal Disclosure: Reflecting upon anything will expose oneself to pain!

Treating of "time", almost in isolation? Or as if it is a mere human perception and / or illusion?

I'm not sure the approach is the best one. Whether or not our perception bears any resemblance to underlying realities is one thing I suppose, but sometimes we need to take a step back and make sure we haven't dissected a part that deprives us of context.

Like when we find that little metal part, or screw when we're sweeping the floor, that looks familiar, but unless we see it with the vacuum cleaner that it fell off of, we just can't place it.

Einstein made a great contribution to science, but it wasn't just relativity. Time came right along with space, and Einstein showed that they were inseparable. A new term was coined to capture the idea, the now familiar space-time continuum.

As far as bringing in the many other ideas, maybe good, but maybe also back up a bit, and reconnect the concept with it's inseparable partner - space.

JR

reply to post by JR MacBeth


Yeah and the point you bring up is certainly valid. I originally did this as a little thing in my spare time, and I was originally going to add onto it more and describe how predestination was simply extremely improbable with how I thought things worked in the universe. But yeah, now when I go to add more I feel like it is only fair to mention space in admist of time. Perhaps I can do some research, because I have heard a lot of very mixed things about the same amount of space always coexisting with the same amount of time. Then the theories regarding fluidic space and time... it's all so fascinating and at the same time mind-boggeling.

reply to post by consigliere


Yes and everyone is entitled to their opinion

Ironically though, I did write this almost as if to try to "disprove" predestination/fate. Then with writing it I found what logically made sense to me was that though extremely... EXTREMELY improbable, there is no way to actually say that it is impossible.

As for not believing in chance however... That has little to do on what actually happens. It is merely a calculation. A calculation helping us predict what an outcome is. (and according to Statistics, almost everything is possible, even if the probability of outcome is .0000001%). And what I was saying about luck was really just that it exists as specific chance (when something's outcome is maybe .0000001% and then actually happens)

One question though, just out of pure curiosity... have you ever taken a Calculus class?

Originally posted by PhysicsAdept
reply to post by JR MacBeth

 

Yeah and the point you bring up is certainly valid. I originally did this as a little thing in my spare time, and I was originally going to add onto it more and describe how predestination was simply extremely improbable with how I thought things worked in the universe. But yeah, now when I go to add more I feel like it is only fair to mention space in admist of time. Perhaps I can do some research, because I have heard a lot of very mixed things about the same amount of space always coexisting with the same amount of time. Then the theories regarding fluidic space and time... it's all so fascinating and at the same time mind-boggeling.

A world-class physicist that I had the pleasure to know helped me with this concept some years ago. His method was to go back to the "beginning". In religion, and philosophy, this primordial Beginning, this Genesis, was always considered to be the beginning of not just of "the world", or the universe, but of "time" as well.

Modern science perhaps "confirmed" this when the left-over "hum" from the so-called "Big Bang" was actually first heard with radio telescopes, decades ago.

Time, as it turns out, began with this "Big Bang", at least in this older explanation of the origins of the universe. In other words, there really was no point in ever talking about a "time" that was "before" T = 0. Today, things have advanced some, with brane theory, and clashing branes and whatnot, but the basics were already laid out, essentially, if you wanted to use the "creation" metaphor, time was created WITH matter. For the physicists out there, they can research things like the "Planck length", and the smallest meaningful time interval possible, the Planck time, etc.

For all intents and purposes, these are very real, scientific ideas that underpin our concepts of reality, they are far more than figments of our imagination. Time we might say, is "of the essence", and can never be meaningfully treated of, apart from space.

How this concept projects into the esoteric, and into philosophy and metaphysics can be very interesting.

JR

Time Is a space between one event and another.
or one event followed by another.
example,
a photon of light travels in space.
the shortest distends it travels is the shortest measure of time.

reply to post by buddha


Ah yes, which delves into quantum theory... the smallest unit of length, a "quantum" of length (=10^-35 meter) and a "quantum" of time (=about 10^-43 sec)

Got That From Here

I am responding to both previous posts with this, really

reply to post by PhysicsAdept


well done, I am a Geographer/Cartographer, well educated in hard science and mathematics, love cutting edge physics. its' refreshing to see someone out there is thinking! I could relate what you are saying to another issue is north actually up and so on, who's to say in ref. to the universe, a conventional point of reference? I think you must consider time as an conventional point of reference in this physical dimension. yes there are many variables which affect time. Einstien was a good ref.. as far as time travel is concerned I believe that a device whereby we can view events of the past would be safer than to allow humans to interact in past events, knowing human nature.
time in my mind is an essential part of creation, no matter what your beliefs may be.
I have had the good fortune to learn how to transend into "out of body" experiences, in other dimensional plains time seems to not exist. it is very different. perhaps time is not essential in these dimensions? I will look into this question. there is a higher source to contact. just as you conjecture about past civilizations. this is a subject I would like to explore and hopefully document. wouldn't it be interesting to know the actual history of human civilizations, who they were, when and why they ended. I personally rely on instinct, it guides me when I am searching for answers to questions which arise in everyday life. ie) when a stressful situation is faced I rely on my gut instinct, if It is uneasy I know to avoid it, calm, I don't worry. I will look to the higher source for an answer on your question of time and will respond when I have a decent answer to give.

reply to post by PhysicsAdept

Time is merely a convention as a measure of causation. In truth there is no such thing as time only an eternally unfolding present moment of everywhere already always, now.

Edit (for clarity): From the perspective of a single photon of light, there is no time since all things are in intimate contact, everywhere.

The very idea of time requires a subject/object duality which we are beginning to discover is an illusion.

The obsession of science with an arrow of time is killing us, and removing us from our true place in the cosmos, imo.

Of course, science, as we practice it, cannot be done without it.

But in truth, it's always now, there is nothing else. When the dinosaurs roamed the earth, we were in a sense, also there as an unendfolded potentiality. There is only now, now and forever, sandwiched as it were between two eternities, and thus, it's already eternity and we are trapped in it without the possibility of escape, only transformation.

reply to post by skydog801


Thank you very much! I personally also am refreshed to see thinking a valid use of time. More so I am refreshed to see that someone finds pleasure in seeking answers!