What is time?

McCulloch · Post by **McCulloch** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:21 pm

What is time?

Is it finite or infinite? Does it flow or is it a path? Is there a minimum possible time interval or is it continuous? What is now? Did time begin? If so, what came before time?

Does religion aid at all in answering these questions?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:45 pm

So it is your contention that time does not exist without motion?

Icarus Fallen · Post by **Icarus Fallen** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:57 pm

AkiThePirate wrote:So it is your contention that time does not exist without motion?

Yes, and more than that, I contend, that even though motion is contingent upon time (Nothing moves, if not the hands of time, Aki.), it is also requisite to time.

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:08 pm

Not that I think you're definitely wrong, but how've you arrived at that conclusion?

Icarus Fallen · Post by **Icarus Fallen** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:12 pm

Divine revelation. -- How else?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:16 pm

No, seriously.

Icarus Fallen · Post by **Icarus Fallen** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:24 pm

Well, let's just say, it's consistent with the philosophy of a strong physicalist, such as yours truly.

Since I don't believe in the ghosts of immaterialism, I see no reason to believe that anything exists independent of the material universe; ...not even "time".

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:30 pm

No physical theory of which I'm aware requires motion or change for time to pass.

Goat · Post by **Goat** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:00 pm

Icarus Fallen wrote:Well, let's just say, it's consistent with the philosophy of a strong physicalist, such as yours truly.

Since I don't believe in the ghosts of immaterialism, I see no reason to believe that anything exists independent of the material universe; ...not even "time".

The question is.. does time need space to exist, or was the 'big bang' when time became entwined with space? One theory of time is that the expansion of space time is when the arrow of time starting going in one direction.

How does time interact on the quantum level?

Icarus Fallen · Post by **Icarus Fallen** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:02 pm

AkiThePirate wrote:No physical theory of which I'm aware requires motion or change for time to pass.

Hence the distinction between the Physicist and the Physicalist.

I'm a philosopher, not a scientist. As such, I can get away with promoting my own theories ...in English, as opposed to a chalkboard full of those mathematical characters.

Besides, prior to its inception, the absence of the theory of relativity had no more bearing on its truth or falsity ...than its presence in modern textbooks does today. Fact is: it's true or false, quite apart from its inception.

Appeals to authority (and implicitly to the status quo) have never much impressed me.

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 3:50 am

Rather than appealing to the status quo, I'm appealing to the best knowledge of the physical universe we have; physics.
In fact, were your postulates correct we would expect time to be independent of space in both relativistic and quantum physics. Rather than that, however, it is intertwined with space, and in rare cases, almost interchangeable.