Does time exist?

Alan Watts has a wonderful video on Youtube titled Time. He says that time doesn't exist as we know it. We look at things going from the past to the future, with now as the present. However, you can't pinpoint beginnings or ends. We look at things in terms of events, however, you can't pinpoint the beginning or end of events either. What happens today is the result of what happened yesterday and time before, and the repercussions go on beyond today and tomorrow, so the real beginning of today was a long time ago, even until the beginning of time, and likewise for the end of today. Watts also talks about the Big Bang, and how time continued from there - something about how it strethches out from that one moment, I forget exactly - but it's well worth looking up, it's one of my favourites.

Time is illusory. We are physical creatures, so we cannot experience eternity at once. But eternity is already defined. What is now, and what will be, are the same, separated only by the physical actions that make them up. But God sees all, because He is outside of time, without a physical body.

David Hume wrote well on this subject in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. He claims that there is no logical ground to claim whether one thing must have caused another thing to happen, and doing so is not only common but post hoc. For example, we see one object collide with another, the other moves, so we say that the first object moved the second. Hume writes that we do not have enough license to say what the cause of something is because all we notice is a change in cases, or in the example, that the first object was moving and now the second one is. There is no logically sound reason why the first must have moved the second.

We as humans notice changes in what we perceive, and we rhetorically refer to this change as occurring over a time interval. However, the only basis that time can have is a change in cases. That is, we say the preceding case as happening farther in the past than the present one. Therefore, to claim that time exists is foolish because it is fundamentally a change in circumstance.

A good way to decide whether something is legitimate or not is to try to picture it in your head. If it isn't derived from experience or cannot be logically demonstrated then there's no reason to believe it is true.

Time is the means by which we determine, and are able to express the spatial element between one thought, and the next and is therefore subjective and related wholly to mind.

However, today, in order to more easily communicate our thoughts we adopt the measure provided by a universal instrument designed, and accepted by society that gives 'time' a common relationship which in English we call a clock.

In the same way we accept a universal measurement of distance - in Roman times it was 'paces', and then there was 'feet'; with the height of horses it is 'hands'. We have also inches, and centimetres.

The importance lies in using the one understood by those with whom we are trying to communicate.

Time to my young daughter was expressed in terms with which her mind could relate. For instance if I said we will go somewhere tomorrow, she would know in her mind that it would mean something which would happen after she had been to bed. If I said in three days, she would say ' You mean when I go to bed and get up again, then go to bed and get up again, and then go.......

You get the idea.

Before 'time pieces' , as you will remember from those Westerns, they used 'Sunrise' and 'Sundown', and the Indians would say - 'many moons'.

From this we see that time is brought about by the needs of communication to others, or in 'spacing events' in our own mind.

Time, or anything for that matter, only 'exists' if we want it to exist. We are mind with a body, not a body with a mind. Nothing exists to us which our mind does not see and accept.

Our minds can be tricked, or programmed, into seeing things differently from what they are to others - and that includes time. Therefore, time is subjective to the individual, and can be different to that which is accepted
by consensus as in that determined by the majority.

Some will say that 'time' existed before we were born. It did not exist for us.

It was only meaningful to the living - those who had a thought process.

The past, or 'time past' only has meaning to us when we need to relate that which 'is' to that which now 'isn't' ( has changed, because life is a process of constant change.)

We can relate more to the past, than the future, because there is usually evidence. When there is no evidence then we have conjecture (imagination).

Any thoughts relating to future has to be conjecture.

To summarise in as few words as possible - time is subjective and is something the mind devises, or accepts, in order to make sense and provide order to its thought processes.

I put these thoughts forward to stimulate the mind in seeking answers, not to particularly pass it off as a definitive explanation.

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Originally Posted by Midas

Time is the means by which we determine, and are able to express the spatial element between one thought, and the next and is therefore subjective and related wholly to mind.

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Please explain how thoughts have a spacial element. Granted, noticeable succession is necessary for the perception of time but I wouldn't say that time is a means of determining rather than a term we use to describe an interval of successive physical cases.

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Time, or anything for that matter, only 'exists' if we want it to exist. We are mind with a body, not a body with a mind. Nothing exists to us which our mind does not see and accept.

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I also wouldn't say that time exists because we want it to, it is a necessary product of the perception of change. Seconds do not elapse because I want them to, but rather because there is a relatively consistent and unquestionably measurable interval between one state and a noticeable separate one.

You ask me to explain how, to me, thoughts have a spatial element.

It is said that we cannot entertain two 'conscious' thoughts at the same time (or superimposed if we negate the word 'time'.) I have found this personally to be true. Others may believe differently. However, the subconscious 'thought' never sleeps. It continues to instruct our heart to beat - even when asleep.

There is a process between one thought and the next - no blank spaces if we are conscious. While we are conscious, as in awake, our mind is continuously thinking - mostly, in the common man, 'Like a drunken monkey' as someone once described.

It is the ability to focus thought for a specific purpose that produces the outstanding men and women of history, and contemporary - for good, or for bad. Time is the name we give to what measures the space between one thought and the next. As thought is continuous it can be both conscious, and subconscious.

Time, as with anything, only exists, to us, because we want it to.

Here 'want' has a more liberal meaning and relates to 'need' . Our minds, in order to maintain balance, or sanity' requires (needs, wants, demands) order. To establish and maintain order or division of thought we coin the word 'time' (it is only our English word) The word 'time' has no meaning in Chinese, or any other language with which I am familiar. They have their own word.

There are very serious people who claim they can see ghosts. Most of us who cannot see such things do not believe, or don't believe but maintain an open mind. We are judged by what is accepted as normal by the majority - in other words, we are judged by what they think. If you built a community of people who all believed they could see ghosts, and you entered that community, you would be considered abnormal.

We are more comfortable when we are in a society that accepts our standards. EVERYTHING relates to mind. We are what we think, not what we eat.

A method of calculating this concept, time, has been accepted by the majority. Before Greenwich Mean Time, in England the clocks would give different times of the day in different parts of Britain.

It was the advent of the railways that brought the need for time tables that would be meaningful (the same) for all parts of the country. The acceptance of 'time' brings order.

As life throughout the world became more sophisticated due to the Industrial revolution, it became necessary to have a more precise, and accepted, universal measure of the period between cause and effect, or one thought and the next.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, while time existed, because thought existed, there was no need for it to be so precise. Hence people used usually the positions of the sun, or moon - or even light and dark, day and night. You got up at daylight, worked the land, and slept at night. Meal breaks were fixed at the appropriate periods (intervals). To differentiate between each they were given names. The needs of the body would tell the people when it was 'time' and eventually this would be programmed into a bodily habit that became common to all.

In remote societies today they will still have their measure of one period of change and another (change is constant) but it will be different to ours.

Even if you were out with some friends in the country and none of you had a watch, or means of 'telling the time' by the accepted measure, after some time, if each of you were asked what time you thought it was - you would find quite a difference in answers, and probably none spot on correct.

Now all would know that you were nearer to night time than when you all got up in the morning, and if the sun was visible and some understood navigation they could probably make a closer guess than those who were not, they would still not guess the precise time, unless they were lucky.

The point I am getting at is that it is all subjective. The minds wants (as in needs) a measure to have balance, and order, but it does not always need to be precise as that generally accepted, and required, by modern society.

Sometimes I think this life is like a movie we are watching and we are being pulled along by time.

Time exists only when we are aware of it. For instance,
while waiting in line at the Motor Vehicle.

Methaphysical object...we cant see it or touch it or taste it.But we meassure it, we count it, we calculate it and we move inside it.
Well, Philosophy and Physichs use time to explain the duration and the phenomenical sucession, and it is always related to space.
Some think that time is absolute and all things are determined by Time_Space as they were conditions to reallity dinamism.Other philosophers and scientist thinks that Time and Space are relative and a determined by reallity.
All these is to old Metahphisical discussion and it goes through Physichs and many sceintist try to explain it.If time always existed, before the universe begun ...if it is caused by the movement if it is only a concept on your mind.
We can call it time or Tick Tack but it is always moving forward.Because all things appear, grow, decay and die.
That for us and the rest of what exist.For me time, is the name we give to our finitude.
regards....

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

Please explain how thoughts have a spacial element. Granted, noticeable succession is necessary for the perception of time but I wouldn't say that time is a means of determining rather than a term we use to describe an interval of successive physical cases.



I also wouldn't say that time exists because we want it to, it is a necessary product of the perception of change. Seconds do not elapse because I want them to, but rather because there is a relatively consistent and unquestionably measurable interval between one state and a noticeable separate one.

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This sounds quite Kieergard to me.

Time is created by the creatures who live it. Usually a concept to measure the moment. To perceive change movement history we need time. Time is also a confirmation of a being's existence. We would be lost without it even as it does not truly exist.

I discussed Phillip K. Dick's first theory on time in Anastasija's thread 'Have you ever met a dream character'. If you check it out you can see PKD's first theory among many. He later came to believe that not only were alternate pasts and futures possible, but also alternate present time scenarios. He even gave a speech to the effect that he had full knowledge of the experiences of another Phillip K. Dick that was living in a slightly altered version of the USA--one in which Richard Nixon had not resigned office but had actually been assassinated. He wrote all of this down in Radio Free Albemuth primarily, as well as a few other novels. As absurd as it sounds, for those who follow quantam physics, this notion of multiple versions of the same person living at the same time on slightly different versions of the earth have been seriously entertained. There have even been some early data backing up their suspicions, such as the peculiar ability of a single electron to appear in two different places at the same time. Anyway, PKD tried to explain time as being circular but linear at the same time. Like when you examine a record and follow one of the grooves from beginning to end. For him, this idea could also explain the curious propensity that space-time has for churning out a plethora of possibilities at once. His ultimate view was that this was how God managed the messy business of history. The best possible outcome would be selected, (or win out) leaving the other threads of history to wither away and eventually ending up in an eschatological victory over history and the end of time itself.

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Originally Posted by Demian

I discussed Phillip K. Dick's first theory on time in Anastasija's thread 'Have you ever met a dream character'. If you check it out you can see PKD's first theory among many. He later came to believe that not only were alternate pasts and futures possible, but also alternate present time scenarios. He even gave a speech to the effect that he had full knowledge of the experiences of another Phillip K. Dick that was living in a slightly altered version of the USA--one in which Richard Nixon had not resigned office but had actually been assassinated. He wrote all of this down in Radio Free Albemuth primarily, as well as a few other novels. As absurd as it sounds, for those who follow quantam physics, this notion of multiple versions of the same person living at the same time on slightly different versions of the earth have been seriously entertained. There have even been some early data backing up their suspicions, such as the peculiar ability of a single electron to appear in two different places at the same time. Anyway, PKD tried to explain time as being circular but linear at the same time. Like when you examine a record and follow one of the grooves from beginning to end. For him, this idea could also explain the curious propensity that space-time has for churning out a plethora of possibilities at once. His ultimate view was that this was how God managed the messy business of history. The best possible outcome would be selected, (or win out) leaving the other threads of history to wither away and eventually ending up in an eschatological victory over history and the end of time itself.

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Interisting submission.
The same Leibniz talked about multitemporal reallity,being a newtonian and before Eisntein was born and brings relativity and plurydimensionality to the Time and Space theories.tHE POST EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRIES AND THE CURVATURE lighted up this idea of a not continuous space and time but flowing and not uniform...
The speculation about time since Aristotle until Eistein take us to the most deep scientific and methaphysical questions.But time "is not a thing" Leibniz sayd, not abn object...not material but a concept and the only way to order the not simultaniety.
How I love Galileo, Newton, Leibniz and Einstein.They are as Mathematic as Philosophers.

Yes but Leibniz proclaim the two principles :The Enough and Neccessary reason and the principle of identity and then he says that we need to order those things that appear to our senses as real. , the material things, objects, the co existences and we NEED time to order the phenomenichal sucession because we dont experience things all simultaniously but in a flown so we need time.Our reason and understanding need and have the concept of time almost innate because we are temporal beings and need to situate ourselves inside of it.
I wonder if Hume had a clock on his empiric desk!

Of course it exists - time is money.