Speed Of Time - Page 2

i am really impressed at the concepts you guys are talking about...especially if your ages are correct (correlating with what it says under your name)...especially angel_of_death. My view on time that it is all relative..your brain regulates what is and isnt fast or slow. Interest turns it fast. Boredom slow. However, time must exist, without it there could be no events in life. I think im just reiterating stuff already said..maybe.

Yeah, it is currently beleived that the fabric of space time is frozen. I personelly beleve that there is no 'tense' in time, only 'now'(whatever that means) It is beleived that time dimensions are very small, like grains. Perhaps then time is not an abstract concept afterall, those 'grains' must make everything go foward etc. We ourselves have come up with different tenses to help ourselves(like clocks). Those 'time grains' or whatever just make time flow, the rest is up to us. Hmm, if there was no matter except time and a bunch of A.Ihow could they tell weather time existed(as nothing was changing). Well, maybe they could consider their thoughts a past and sense time.

Anyway rschulz, I am not saying time itself goes any faster or slower, only our perception, as you said. But we atleast can't choose our perceptions. If time seems slow, it is not because we want it to. I don't think that God percieves anything, as His will be final perception, the truth or whatever. So why does He choose to view a yea as a day? why not less,well who knows, I mean all predictibility would brake down outside the universe. Nevertheless, you said that God only perceives it that way, and it is not actually that way, but it must be, as whatever perception there is out of this universe, it must be 'the' perception.So whatever God perceives, is the way everything is, because that is the True and ultimate one.
But if time really is material, i.e a dimension, verysmall like a grain or whatever, then that would mean time doesn.t exist outside the universe, meaning that it is still,so wouldn't that mean that it is 0 seconds? I think I am going to get a nice long sleep!

Yes why, Various factors make the perception of time go fast slow, like as you said, boredom, brainpower etc. you can read the preivious posts.

It's hard to say how God would perceive time and ultimately I think it is irrelevant b/c God (assuming he exists) is said to exist outside time. I think if God did look at the world, he would view it in it's completeness. That is, not as seperate and individual points in spacetime but as one huge diagram of every single atom in the universe on an infinate timeline. In other words, God would see all spacetime points from the spacetime point where the universe began to the very end of spacetime; including all spacetime points in between, on one large Deistic Sony flatsceen, or in God's perferred method of viewing (presuming that there is a beginning and an end). This is the idea of his omniscience, or all-knowing property.

There are very few truths in this world as able to be perceived by the human understanding, and there are far more a priori or from reason truths made so that our minds can 'cope' with what's going on around us. However, I do not think that time is a truth, rather it is something used simply as a concept of measurement that is understood logically by 'rational' beings. So if time did stand still, I guess, I wouldn't really give a rats ass b/c it wouldn't make a bit of difference how my reality functions. Any takers for that notion?

No, i don't think so. I mean yes, clocks etc are just meant for our own convenense. no body really knows what time is, but if it didn't exist, we wouldn't.Hmmm, I guess i'm neutral, your right, if it didn't exist, We would still go on living, perhaps, Although no one can gaurantee that time in the way we percieve it exists even for us.
However, there must be some force that makes everything go foward, and not backward etc, and if that force is taken away, even nothing would not exist.
Hmmm, could it be that in other dimensions, time could flow sideways as well?!

I want to say again I think that time is simply a matter of our perception enabling the human species to 'cope' in it's reality. (Please see my last reply for more details)

However Angel, to entertain the notion of time from a concept of human understanding, I need you to further explain what you mean by "could it be that in other dimensions, time could flow sideways as well?"

Well, I mean no one can imagine what other dimensions would be like, but there could be various dimensions of time (perhaps in some other universe), like moving sideways, up down etc. Like maybe time moving sideways would allow us to share someone elses perspective of time or something.
Anyway, yes time is perspective which human beings relate to, but why should time(or someother force) flow forward, or in other words, why should affects precede consequence? Why shouldn't consequence precede affect or something, which would be quite normal, finding out why a certain thing happened etc.
In short, the viewing of time is different for everyone, but it's characteristics are the same.

Another thing that just struck me was that I think that einstein was a liitle bit wrong. It is believed that time is relative, but isn't only the *perspective* of time relative? I mean, if time itself was relative, then things would quite frequently go backwards etc.

I think what you mean is our perception of cause and effect rather than "affect and consequence." And you do have a point, why should one precede the other? The problem is another misconception of man that there actually is cause and effect. Cause does not exist.

When people say something was "caused" they are fooled because what they say is simply an interpretation of an effecient cause and not necessarily the final cause. The only thing that would give evidence for a "cause" would be for 2 events to occur that were "identical." The fact that something occurs regularly and is calucuable does not mean it follows necessarily. They are always and only to the infinate .99th percential true.

Nothing is certain, but for practical purposes and the advancement of mankind, man feels more comfortable about cauality if he see "good numbers."

"The suppossed instinct of causality is fear of the unfamiliar, and the concept to discover something familiar in it, a search not for causes but for the familiar." - Nietzsche

rschulz, how does final cause get wrapped in the interpretation of a "cause." In most cases, I would think that it is just the efficient cause that always gets construed as being "the cause." I don't even think that people think along the lines of the final cause. If they did, why don't they think about the material and formal causes. I guess I just think that they always look the efficient cause as "the cause."

Moreover, this aspect of the discussion seems to be the rehash of Hume's "Problem of induction." The relevant part would say that we cannnot see the inner workings of causation. And that probability increases as we observe two events that seem to be chronologically related. As for my own little bit, it might be possible that there is a real cause. But, humans just don't have the equipment that permits that kind of knowledge. There might be a possibility to see the inner workings, but we don't have what it takes.

I am not so sure that time can be viewed from side ways or from effect to cause. With every bit of this discussion of time, there seems to be two ways to conceive of time. Scientifically, where one point follows another. And from the human perspective. If anyone dares to devote themselves to Heideggers "Being and Time." You can find the human perspective. That book is murderous to read.

But suffice it to say, I don't think that we can really experience the effect before the cause, because the two would be interchanged. What was the cause is now the effect and vice versa. Therefore, we didn't get outside of the time thing. I don't think that scientific time can flow side to side either, if it did it would have just changed vectors. As far as why time "should" follow certain rules, is not a question of should. But perhaps, it just does. I don't know if we are ones to ask question about should. Maybe more a question of what does it do?

Maybe we can also wonder about omnisicence and transcending the boundaries of time. The day that anybody figures that out, give me a call.

I think people confuse what they think to be the final cause with effecient cause and in interpretation they substitute the former for the latter. And I agree when you say that if there be a final cause that humans do not have the equipment to know it.

I think that Hume's problem of induction relates to all human knowledge. After effecient causes are exhausted things cannot simply be claimed as true from reason alone. A good example is why we cannot explain God through logical proofs.

I think reason is where the concept of time stems from and why as I said in a few earlier posts man 'invented' it to 'cope' with his reality or "the unfamiliar." I think time like cause does not exist rather it is something that promotes mankinds conceptualization and understanding of reality. Therefore no matter how you perceive time, forward or backward, it will always and only be a creation of mans moving explaination of the concept time and not something that actually 'is.'

Although I have not read Heidegger, I plan to, maybe this will change my mind. Do you have any suggestions of good translators of his writings Jali?

In a sense, I guess you could say that time doesn't really exist, just like cause. and I am not really offended if you do say it, in some ways, I could care less. But, I think that Kant did have a point when he says that the human mind is structured in such a way that we see things happening sequentially. One thing that stays constant between the two occcurrences that happen one after the other is the movement of time. In other words, like someone said earlier, somone lifts a cup and drinks...that whole debate...but I guess I don't really care to rehash that.

Heidegger offers a different view of time that might be considered to be more psychologically based. He would not endorse notions of alternate universes, causality, flipping the widget on time and all of things that physicists might be concerned with. He is more concerned with what we experience. How we experience time is only part of his inquiry. There are two translations of Being and Time, as far as I know. Robinson and Macquarrie, which has been the classic since it was published, and I think that when anybody talks about BEing and Time, the are refererring to that edition. Joan Stambaugh just recently published her translation. My professor didn't like that one as much, although it did have some particular spots that were easier to understand. Be warned though, Heidegger hurts to read, it will be like learning a whole new langauge. It would be an error to think that most of the words in that book have the usual connotations.

i think everyone is mixing psychological time with physical time. What rschulz is talking about is psychological time, which just exists in out minds withought any consequence physicaly, and he is right, it exists only for us, and not as a reality.
Some law also states that any affect is not caused by a cause, but by a number of causes. So even if a single cause does not exist, it does not mean that a cause does not exist altogather.

I would propose that the cause doesn't exist at all. Here is why:

For cause to exist there must be some substance that created that cause. (ie - a finger, hand, or atomic particle that flips the lightswitch on and that 'causes' the light to turn on)

We then must have an idea of what that substance is that did the causing. (ie - the ideas of fingers, hands, atomic particles)

After that we must also understand how that substance that 'caused' the light to turn on, had the ability to turn the light on. Similar to how we know three angles equaling 180 degrees total, come togethor to form a right triangle.

After these 3 conditions are met it may be possible to determine a final cause exists.

However the very first condition cannot be met because we do not have the "equipment" to determine the substance that did the causing, ie - the final cause. That being the case, the other two conditions cannot be met either.

On Kant...

Even if Kant simply noticed that the mind sees things in a sequential order it does not guarentee that because one thing happens at one point in space and time and something occurs after that at another point in space and time that anything existed, held constant, or whatever you want to call it. I think maybe in order to explain times existance he would have to explain the motion that took place between two occurances. I mean, for all Kant knows, those two occurances could be the only things that existed at that particular point in space and time and everything else, including time ceased to exist before, after, and between those two occurances.

After saying that you might want to ask what was the reasonable explaination for the sequence of those two occurances and I would direct you back to Hume's problem of induction.

I had a professor once say to me, "All of Kants writings should be burned for the good of humanity."

Man...I just got robbed. I had a really long post with beautiful ideas (it had the makings of a nobel prize), but some evil demon took from me. Either that, or there was some technical difficulties. whatever. I don't care what you say rschulz, something caused that, and since I don't have the "equipment" to find out what happened I will be crying myself to sleep tonight. I hope your happy.

Hey man, I'm sorry to hear that, I feel your pain. I'm sure it will come back to you. I'm anxious to read what you have thought up. Have you ever read any Nietzsche?