Is the concept of time a human construct? Doesn't time

Time exists, the concept of ticking seconds in just a construct
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime#Spacetime_intervals_in_flat_space

>>7918505
Just remember that time is a result of causality not the other way around

>>7918515
Units of time are defined as seconds.
Further, the entire phenomenon is 'observed' from a reference frame.

Time itself is a flat circle

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>>7918515
pretty much this.

and I'd like to add that time is discrete on the quantum level and has the unit of 1 planck time.

>Doesn't time require observation?
indeed it does but problem (for now) is we can't observe a moment, only a period of time.

>>7918505
>Is the concept of time a human construct?
No. Proof? Entropy

literally who cares

it doesn't affect your life because YOU perceive time
QED FUCK YOU

>>7918505
>Is the concept of time a human construct?
>Doesn't time require observation?
Where in the fuck would you get this nonsense?

>>7918665
>Further, the entire phenomenon is 'observed' from a reference frame.
Neither QM nor GR require an "observer".
IN QM it's an unfortunate choice of phrasing, but wave function collapse is a prerequisite for measuring an electron's position, NOT the other way around.
In GR, there are an infinite number of "frames of reference", and all are equally valid, while NONE require an actual "observer".

>>7918717
>>Doesn't time require observation?
>indeed it does but problem (for now) is we can't observe a moment, only a period of time.
Pseudo-philosophical gibberish.

>>7918505
its a theory for explaining the existence of memories (both long term and a second ago).

it does what a theory does which is explain the memory stuff just like evolution explains the different species and fossils we find . but still you cant prove there exists more then one time (quantised or continuous).

in a sense it doesn't even qualify as a theory because theories must provide an ability to make predictions and that assumes there exists a time other then the present which is circular logic and therefor is false .

>>7919511
>No. Proof? Entropy
entropy doesn't prove time , it only proves that if it exists its not symmetric .
>>7918717
>and I'd like to add that time is discrete on the quantum level and has the unit of 1 planck time.
could you maybe link experiments where this is demonstrated ?. could it be that time is continuous but quantum interactions are quantised (the difference being that if its quantized all things happen every 'time tick' wheres of its continuous some quantum interaction can occur and another can occur (to another particle) before a planck time has passed) or is this whole time\size scale impossible to experiment with ?.

>>7918505
the concept of time, like any other concept, is obviously a human construct
you can't prove time itself isn't either, depending on what you consider a "human construct": you could be a floating brain and imagining all of this, and everything could be a construct of your mind

ultimately, the problem is that these questions are absolutely useless.

>>7918515
>>7918717
>>7919511

>i'll bullshit about quantum physics and hope nobody understands it well enough to call me out
fuck off

>>7918665
A clock measures itself, not time.

>>7919584
These questions are useful in probing people to explore things they take for granted.

>>7919584
can you prove that time is unprovable ?.assuming time exists is retarded but assuming it dosnt or that you cant prove either way is equally retarded .

>>7919651
>assuming time exists is retarded
>assuming it dosnt or that you cant prove it either way is equally retarded

So where are you on all of this?

>>7919651
i believe the multiverse theory also disregards time. instead of time measuring change, multiverse instead makes all change independent, with no correlation or causality to measure, only iterations

>>7918505
time is derived from a constant motion OKAY

>>7919663
that theory is just as valid as the time one to explain memories and the apparent existence of things that look as if time passed .
but the problem with it is just like time it introduces new things into existence which are not proven .

the time theory introduces multiple times (now,the future, 4 seconds ago) as opposed to the one you can prove (now).

the multiverse stuff introduces more universes while you cant prove there exist any other then this one . and semantically speaking could you even speak of other universes existing if existence is defined to be a thing which is in this universe ?.

>>7919657
the only place you can logically be . my answer is the same as if i ask you whats the color of the car of the person closes to me (which is to say i dont know and have no clear idea how to find out and if anyone comes up with one i'd really like to hear it ).

>>7919667
the definition of motion assumes the existence of time .

>>7918717
Bullshit. Planck time has nothing to do with whether time is discrete or continuous.

1 unit of Planck time is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time

I've just typed a theory so great in this comment, that I'm not even going to post it here due to the risk of someone stealing it. I could use it for my future PhD thesis. THANK YOU /sci/! THANK YOU 4chan!

>>7919745
>7919745
dont be a faggot just document your early interest in the topic to claim it. what was it

>>7919651
it's trivial, actually. you can't know anything. prove you can know anything at all, try.

science doesn't care about "knowing" or "truth". science cares about modeling experience

>>7919745
Like we'd still your shit anyway.
I'm an applied physicist, I join in these debates for fun and understanding.

>>7919753
i know i exist .
also when you model things you must take into account what are your assumptions that go into that model (usually observations \ experiments \ extrapolations from known physical laws).

these assumptions include the fact that those observations\experiments happened and the assumption that if they did time exists and the laws of physics are constant in it .all of which are unproven .

so basically your approach to science has to be like mathematics . you cant start mathematics from nothing so you make axioms and mathematics is everything which arises from them , in the same way scientific theories are what arises from certain assumptions and experiments\observations built on top of those assumptions .
so you could say science is epistemological mathematics in a way .
>>7919745
>>7919752
>>7919764
could you try to make the samefagging less obvious

>>7918515
Are they correct though?

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>>7919699
>checked

>>7919753
So you *know* that you can't know anything?

Time indeed is a human construct. You see, I think that perceiving time is our way of observing it. I think, and this may be stupid, that if we didn't perceive time, we could time travel, illogical right? Wrong. Here comes in the fourth dimension.Since we are 3D beings, we can't perceive it, but what is the 4th dimension? Let's take a human life for example. It has the start and the end. Now imagine a snake with it's tail symbolizing the birth, and the end of the tail symbolizing death. In between there are billions and trillions of events, but events are made out of 3D objects performing an action, so 4D is a lot of 3D objects set in a timeline (snake) like a 3D object is a lot of 2D "objects" connected in space.

>>7920056
7919745
7919752 (You)
7919764

Got that? Great. Now let's go down to quantum physics. Electrons and other subatomic particles have a property called superposition. It allows a single electron to be in multiple places at a time, but when we observe it with the detectors it must instantly choose one position to be in. Humans and all of the Earth's creatures have the perception of time, and this is our way of "observing" time. Now imagine how it would be if we didn't have the perception of time. All the events, all the actions would be happening at once.

Or even better, they wouldn't even be happening because when we say it, it sounds like it's ongoing. No. It HAS happened, it IS happening and it WILL happen, all of the three and none of them at the same time. Humans can't possibly imagine how it'd "look" like. It's as if a person, who was born blind, wants to imagine colors; You can describe it to them, but they will never be able to really imagine it as it is. And since we are observing this events, this "happening", the time superposition collapses and therefore we can only experience one action at the time, we can only see one frame of the movie at the time. In this hypothetical universe where the perception of time never existed. It wouldn't have the beginning nor an end. Why? Because everything would be happening at once, it's like all the parallel universes, all the possible outcomes, they would all be happening at the same time. as I said before we can't really imagine it. But why? Well, just take look at the English language... It's made out of PAST tenses, FUTURE tenses etc. We can't live without it, it's the key component of our existence.

Our existence depends on it, and so does the universe. Let me clear it up for you... TIME makes EVENTS possible. Don't believe me? Take any word, any of the 1,025,109.8 English words. Could they exist without time? No. There is one exception though... SPACE: It could exist without time. It wouldn't have a beginning nor an end. Nothing would be happening at all. Just space. But if nothing is happening, has happened or will ever happened, how was this space created? This is one of those questions no one has an answer to. So let's get back. As we said, in the hypothetical universe with no TIME, everything would be happening at once... That's also wrong. In a universe with no TIME nothing would happen and we go back to the timeless space paradox. At this point we would say well if that's how it works a timeless universe doesn't exist. And that's also wrong... As far as we can understand it CAN'T exist, but as we learned for our history books "as far as we can understand" doesn't hold the water... Einstein said Quantum Mechanics CAN'T exist and yet it's one of the main topic in Physics (LHC).

On YouTube there are a few videos with scientist explaining up to 11 dimensions. And in order for the 5+ dimensions to exist there must be a 4th dimension A.K.A. TIME. WRONG. Naming dimensions with numbers was a big mistake and it will very soon make a great confusion in science. Classical example: When someone says 4th dimension he can either think of time or of the geometrical 4th dimension (Hypercube). Those are the two branches that we understand and that we can explain to a point. And, as you see, the 5th geometrical dimension can exist without the 4th time dimension. So yeah my theory is that there are numerous other dimensions, neither time or spacial, that are still unknown to us, and I like to generalize them as Dark Dimensions.
I'm not really a physicist so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a good idea.

So what do you think about "Dark Dimensions"?

>>7918505
sounds like you are an unintelligent philtard

not related to /sci/

But what if everything already happened and will happen and our human consciousness is just experiencing the universe in discrete moments like a rollercoaster?

>>7920259
Then not everything has already happened, because your "human consciousness" is still going through a process of experience in a present, which is a part of the universe.

>>7920272
There is too big of a gap in your logic.

>>7918505
Time does not exist. This is why you can't go back in time and people see time differently depending on where they are, how fast they are moving, how much gravity there is, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvpbW7JRu0Q

>>7920277
It's impossible to give a good answer to your question because your question is ambiguous. You haven't even defined the concepts of "consciousness" and "universe", so there's not much room for concreteness.

>>7920253
>Asking questions is for philosophers

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>>7918505
Maybe time is a construct of human perception
An Illusion created by--

>>7921117
PLEASE NO

>>7918505

t=D/V

>>7918667
Duude

This is the same kind of question as "does gravity really exist? How do we know it's not just something else?" Time is how we describe the fact that things change, much like how gravity is how we describe things falling towards the ground. Clocks ticking by are obviously a purely human construct, but they represent something fairly fundamental.

>>7922384
>gravity is how we describe things falling towards the ground

>>7920206
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>>7919532
>>7919591
>>7919740

correct me if you call me out, otherwise you just make a fool of yourselves

>>7918505
How long will it be before we go into Time Cube bullshit here, because this smells awfully fishy.

I think gravity is carried by a Graviton, like electromagnetism is carried by photons. And also that the Dark Energy is a force carried by some kind of "Anti-Graviton". Think about it, it explains a lot of things, but again it's just a theory.

It'd make sense... Imagine a 2D gravity field... Put a sphere and it goes down, and my theory is that it has an equal and oppsite reaction, the space around the sphere goes up and since is up, down again etc. Like it's some kind of waves.

>>7922744

52 Posts, 32 posters...your math doesn't add up.

>>7924128
i used different IPs .
also this post
>>7924128
is also me

>>7919651
>assuming time exists is retarded
We can debate about what it is, but it's trivially obvious that there's something that we call time.

>>7924183
define it then without any circular logic .
if we imagine a another dimension called q that is continuous and for every infinitesimal move along that dimension there is an infinitesimal change in the universe (basically a 'timelike' dimension ) how would you prove such a dimension 'exists' ? is there one or are there more ?.

my point is that there isnt a proof of the existence of time and no reason to believe it exists . and the most critical point is that a universe with time and one without would be indistinguishable . so i dont see a reason to believe in time .

believing in time is equivalent to believing in a new elementary particle flying around in our universe that experiences a new type of fundamental force and that force only .

you cant prove or disprove its existence because it dosnt interact with you or anything you can interact with or anything that the things you interact with can interact with and so on . so its existence and nonexistence the equivalent from point of view .
we would usually say this particle doesn't exist but the fact that it doesn't exist is no more true of false then the fact that time doesn't exist .

>>7924119
I have a question. If the earth was a cube, would the gravity field be a cube?

>>7924208
Not the guy you're arguing with.

>define it then without any circular logic
It's impossible. Not just with the concept of "time" specifically, but with the entirety of language. If you define a concept, then define the concepts used in the definition of the first concept, and so on, you will eventually hit self-referenciality, or better put, a circular loop of definitions. With that being said, every word is based on a languageless "idea", which can vary from person to person. "Guagua" in Chile evoques the idea of a baby, while in Cuba it evoques the idea of a transport bus. There isn't really an "absolute" way to define "time" or any concept at all; there are just consensual definitions so that we're able to communicate with each other.

Regarding the concept of time: it could be defined as "what you're experiencing right now continuously". In that way, you could say it does "exists", even if the word "exist" can cause even more confusion.

>>7924291
>what you're experiencing right now continuously
>continuous
>adjective , uninterrupted in time
that is not a definition . also its kinda funny because the definition of uninterrupted is not discontinuous . so theres no way to find out what you said the definition is even means . but as you said it its one of the limits of language .

but then again the idea of definition assumed that what you're defining can be reduced to a combination of other things . mathematics solved this problem by having axioms and everything else defined\derives from those axioms but human language is a clusterfuck in this regard .

anyways its not my point , lets say there's a true definition of time in your head (that you cant express with language) . its equivalent to my definition of this new particle that cant affect or change anything in the universe. the universe would be exactly the same if this idea were true or false just like time . if i say you're surrounded by an ocean of invisible undetectable dicks that only experience the dick-force(no nuclear\EM\grav) you could say that if this idea dosnt change your view of reality in any way its false otherwise any unverifiable statement must be true (notice the difference between unverifiable and unverified ).

just imagine time other then the current moment doesn't exist .there's no future , no past only now and nothing other then now . you never 'existed' before this very moment and never will again . this isnt different to the continuous time view because even there you're never in the past of the future , you're only in the now and you just assume there's more nows .

>>7924542
>mathematics solved this problem by having axioms and everything else defined\derives from those axioms
These axioms use symbols to be expressed, and thus they still need a "mind" to interpret them in an expected way, so they still fall into the same problem as language in general. " x = x " may mean what we call "porn" in an unknown civilization.

>if i say you're surrounded by an ocean of invisible undetectable dicks that only experience the dick-force(no nuclear\EM\grav) you could say that if this idea dosnt change your view of reality in any way its false otherwise any unverifiable statement must be true

I didn't completely understand what you meant here, but I assume that you're saying I can't prove that possibility to be wrong. The problem with that is that I've never heard the concept of "dick-force", nor I can imagine where do those dicks come from, nor in what way they're "undetectable" or "invisible". So I can't say that say that I can't prove it to be true or false, because I don't even understand what is being doubted. It's like doubting the claim that "everything is consciousness": there is nothing to be doubted, because the definition of "consciousness" and "thing" are far too abstract to have a concrete discussion about the topic.

>just imagine time other then the current moment doesn't exist .there's no future , no past only now and nothing other then now . you never 'existed' before this very moment and never will again . this isnt different to the continuous time view because even there you're never in the past of the future , you're only in the now and you just assume there's more nows .

Define "past", "future" and "now".

The point is that it doesn't matter. It may sound cliché, but it's all just semantics. Language is just a tool, so there's no sense on worrying about what is or what isn't when it's something that we choose how to define.

>>7924683
>These axioms use symbols to be expressed, and thus they still need a "mind" to interpret them in an expected way, so they still fall into the same problem as language in general. " x = x " may mean what we call "porn" in an unknown civilization.
my point is that all axiomatic mathematics is unambiguous . there are no circular definitions . which is one approach to the problem of how to start something from nothing . math exists regardless of the symbols used to express it therefor its the closes thing to a 'universal language' , if a far away civilization used the same axioms as us their mathematics is identical to ours (again disregard notation). this way of doing things is obviously better then defining thing A with thing B and thing B with thing A like language does it .
> the definition of "consciousness" and "thing" are far too abstract to have a concrete discussion about the topic.
they're not abstract , i've never seen a definition of consciousness that wasnt circular and therefor meaningless . and as for 'thing' i'd say that if we made language axioms from which everything is built 'thing' would be one of those axioms .

anyways my point wasnt about language or semantics . my point was about whether we should think something 'exists' if it has no bearing on reality . if invisible undetectable non interacting dick exist everywhere nothing would be any different from a scenario where they dont . im saying past and future are like this . its not that you cant doubt the claim because its not clear its that there's nothing to doubt .

>Define "past", "future" and "now".
now : the universe in its current state (whether other such states exist or not)
future : a state of the universe different then its current state.
future : a state of the universe different then its current state.
its funny that the only way to distinguish past and future is though out own consciousness which is the only thing we know for sure exists but we cant even express in words.

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>>7924784
Alright, now I understand what you meant. But while I'd like to keep arguing about this, there's some stuff I need to get done, so I don't have the time to write a coherent answer. Let's drop it here, anon. Godspeed.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/qp/timeless_physics/

>>7925222
Pretty nice link

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>>7918505

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>>7918717
>and I'd like to add that time is discrete on the quantum level and has the unit of 1 planck time.
Holy shit there are people who actually believe this? Do you know what'd happen if we lose continuous time translational symmetry in QM?
Do you even know what you're talking about? Fucking high school kids.

>>7920209
>>7920213
>>7920217
>>7920224
>>7920229
I liked it, mostly because it supports my own beliefs. Thanks for the effort anon

>>7919740
Is that not therefore the shortest discrete unit of time since c in vacuum is the fastest speed possible and 1 Planck length is the shortest possible distance?

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>>7924280
fuck

>>7924280
Nope. Gravity would act towards the center of the earth, and decrease the further from that point you got, just as it does now.

>>7919591
I posted the link to space-time intervals.
Why am I wrong?

Isn't "time" a result of causality which is defined as the space-time interval in GR?

>>7929578
But isn't gravity based on each particle, not the collective total, so it would extend a bit further from the corners, creating a roughly cubish gravity field?

>>7929718
You might think so, but not really. The gravitational pull of any close group of mass acts as if it were a point of mass positioned at its center of gravity.

If the Earth were a cube, you would not be able to easily walk across one side up to the edge and then simply step over to the other.
The corners would seem like the largest mountains imaginable.

>>7931092
That's not true near the surface. Standing in the middle of one of the cube's faces, you would be pulled by the mass out in the corners, so you would weigh slightly less.

Think about two big spheres near each other (like maybe a binary star). From a long distance away, yes, you can approximate their pull as all the ass being concentrated at a point between them. But if you get close, like say you're actually in between the two, you would be pulled in two different directions.

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>>7931120
>all the ass being concentrated at a point between them

>>7927220
cute, but you are forgetting that numbers dont actually "exist" in nature. If I ask you to bring me a 2, you couldnt. You could bring 2 pennies, or two bananas, but they are not the number two. Mathematics are a means to understand the universe, but they are entirely human constructs.

Likewise, time seems to be like light, in that it has properties of two contradictory things. Light has wave-particle duality, and time seems to have discrete-continuous duality.

E for effort, though. You get a bad comment for your inability to socialize with others, though

>>7918667
pass the blunt

>>7928748 You're welcome.