Time. Time.....time is really weird. This is why.

I think my analogy is sound. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? If nobody is in a forest to see the tree, does the tree exist? If nobody is in the universe to perceive time, does time exist?

We can't 'know' if time is or isn't relevant to the universe. His explanation of why it is not is, in all honesty, non sequitur to me. The biggest and the first I noticed was, what the hell does gravity have to do with anything???

Would aliens that evolved somewhere completely devoid of gravity be unable to tell time? Why? Their existence would be just as sequential as ours. They would be created, they would do the analogues of eating, sleeping, mating, whatever. And then they would die.




"Time becomes our fundemental reference. We are chronocentric." I don't really follow here either. I hold that our senses themselves are our most fundemental references for ANYTHING in the universe. Senses, of course, need space and time to function - but that falls under "universe."

"We even say the universe started 13.7 b years ago." Uh, yeah. We also say "That wall is 2 meters away from me." Because "Me" is the center of all we experience.

"With different grabity, different life can create different time." (What.) "They look very differently at the cosmos." There, you see? Look very differently at the cosmos. Everyone looks in their own way at everything. That's why experiences are subjective.

"Because we only look at the universe through our time, we only see a fraction of the universe." What's the difference between this and: Because we look at things through our own eyes, we only see a fraction of everything there is to see in the universe?

So, he's saying that aliens might live in a different time than we, and this is why we can't see each other. Oh, I agree completely with this. Because it's blatantly obvious. I can't see a person who left 5 minutes ago either. Yes, it would be marvelous to be a time traveller.

Then he explains his experience of going into space on a space shuttle. Yes, it must have been incredible and thought provoking. "Some of those programs, they don't work in space." Well, yeah. Duh, you're in a completely different enviroment to what you're used to. Someone who never went swimming and gets dumped into water would be equally confused.

So then he spins some blindfolded dude around who can't point at the ceiling and this is somehow proof that without gravity you can't tell time? What. Ever seen children playing this game with a blindfold and spinning? They can't tell which way they were pointing to a minute ago either. Because they're used to using sight to orient themselves.

Where the hell does gravity even enter the equation here? Seriously? I can't "What." enough.

Then he talks about the central nervous system contemplating km/h and k/h/s and how the nervous system makes time. Well... the central nervous system is what is actually experiencing anything. As we see it, it also makes space. And objects. Acceleration, speed. It makes everything. Because experiences are subjectively being made inside of our central nervous system.

Then he describes some optical illusions. These are connected to our sense of time, how exactly?

Originally Posted by Coffee Grinder

What if there's a microphone nearby?

That counts as 'someone' being there to hear it.





All this is reminding me of an explanation of time as the fourth dimension I once read. How does a two dimensional being, shaped like a piece of paper, for example, experience three dimensional space? You move the paper through various things, and, sequentially, it will experience entire 3D objects. It will experience the movement itself as time and 2D cross sections of objects as units of time. How do we then, as 3D beings, experience a universe with more dimensions than 3? By moving through it - and we experience that movement as time.






But... None of that matters here. All that we experience we experience subjectively. We don't know if space really exists. We don't know if time really exists. And we can't find out.

Even "I think therefore I am." doesn't actually tell us anything beyond that "something" that seems to be "me" is "thinking." Whatever that means.

I feel stupid for saying this...but it's the only response I have...



whoa.

Where the hell does gravity even enter the equation here?

Its part of the special theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation, and it's actually been proven with atomic clocks at differing altitudes.

Originally Posted by LostInMyOwnMind

Its part of the special theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation, and it's actually been proven with atomic clocks at differing altitudes.

Yeah, OK, I understand that. I'm asking about HIS equation. Why someone isn't able to tell time while in a space shuttle, while he is perfectly able to tell time when on the ground. Why a race of living beings that evolved somewhere where there is no gravity would not be able to experience time.

Originally Posted by thewindlistens

I think my analogy is sound. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? If nobody is in a forest to see the tree, does the tree exist? If nobody is in the universe to perceive time, does time exist?

I disagree. If nobody is in the forest to see the tree, the tree or what we perceive to be a tree still exists. The point the guy was making is that time is made in our minds. Trees exist outside of our minds.

Originally Posted by Aether

Trees exist outside of our minds.

And where is your proof of this?

The point I was making is that everything we perceive, including our perception of trees, is made in our minds. Do trees exist outside our minds? Maybe. Maybe not. The same goes for time.

it's really not about rather or not it actually makes a sound. the point is if no one observes it. did it happen? truth is what you know...right? things that occur without your knowing do not exist to you...that's true in so many ways.

What if there is a deer, rabbit, bug, worm or ameoba in the woods? So life defines the event? or.....

Originally Posted by Aether

I disagree. If nobody is in the forest to see the tree, the tree or what we perceive to be a tree still exists. The point the guy was making is that time is made in our minds. Trees exist outside of our minds.

This is EXACTLY what he was saying!

Originally Posted by thewindlistens

And where is your proof of this?

The point I was making is that everything we perceive, including our perception of trees, is made in our minds. Do trees exist outside our minds? Maybe. Maybe not. The same goes for time.

This is exactly NOT what he was saying!

Time ONLY exists in our minds. There is no maybe maybe not.

If you follow that thinking then if you were to kill me, strap my butt to a rocket and blast me to a planet a billion light years away and somehow revive me after landing. I would arrive when I left. That's hogwash, time doesn't exists "because" of me, it exists in "spite" of me. How me-centric can you get?