What is Time?

[RedDog]

I think you want me to say a black hole, but that is a very different thing than "nothing". My answer would be that there is empty space there seemingly, you could not see whatever it is. A black hole is the furthest thing from nothingness, it is the most dense thing we know of in physics, it has more matter than anything else in a given area.

In my understanding of it, when you are looking at a point in 3d space, and you cannot see a receding galaxy, it would mean that the particles coming from that galaxy are too far away and traveling away from us too fast for us to detect.

I don't want you to say anything you don't think is real

So we can agree that in the case discussed above, where this is occuring, that in 3d space we would "see" nothing, or the lack of what was their before.

Now for the sake of the original debate, if "time" was somehow fragmented in that same area, and it now became an area of "past time", (a day, week,month or years past) What would we see in this 3d spacial area?

[Project]

I don't want you to say anything you don't think is real

I put that badly, I meant it sounds like you are hinting at a black hole.

Now for the sake of the original debate, if "time" was somehow fragmented in that same area, and it now became an area of "past time", (a day, week,month or years past) What would we see in this 3d spacial area?

So, in reality, there is no such thing as a 3d space, it is 4d in that time is a dimension (it is spacetime, there is no real way to separate these parts). So, you could say that in that (for argument's sake) 1mil km3 area of space, at time x, there is nothing visible. However, at time y (let's call y 11 billion years earlier) - you could see the galaxy. In reality, the galaxy is in the spot you are looking at, just not at the time you are looking at it.

Time fragmenting etc... I don't know how this could happen, but very theoretically, say you could look through a timehole into the same area but 12 billion years earlier, I have to assume you would see the galaxy.

[RedDog]

So, in reality, there is no such thing as a 3d space, it is 4d in that time is a dimension (it is spacetime, there is no real way to separate these parts). So, you could say that in that (for argument's sake) 1mil km3 area of space, at time x, there is nothing visible. However, at time y (let's call y 11 billion years earlier) - you could see the galaxy. In reality, the galaxy is in the spot you are looking at, just not at the time you are looking at it.

Time fragmenting etc... I don't know how this could happen, but very theoretically, say you could look through a timehole into the same area but 12 billion years earlier, I have to assume you would see the galaxy.

It often feels like I'm banging my head against a wall when I think this way, but I'm trying to remove myself from this discussion. "just not the time you are looking at", or in. The observer is part of the problem with time. Or at least our understanding of how we fit into time. What I mean by this is best describe from the perspective of a Remote Viewer. These skilled humans are capable of stepping outside time and viewing the recessional galaxy the way it was 12 billion years ealier. They don't seemed constrainted by the "space time" boundry. This also seems to fit the accounts of Near Death experiencer's when they speak about the soul returning to its source. Time no longer is linked to that "space", if we can call the universal consciousness a "space". There appear to be some loopholes in the experience of "Time".

[Project]

I'm sorry, am I annoying you? I do not mean to, I don't know anything really, this is just the junk I have picked up over the years. You are not wrong, I am not (too) wrong. Just as there are alternative ways of viewing evolution for instance, one scientific, one faith based. Neither is wrong, you pick the one that suits you. It could be I am entirely missing your point, and if so, I apologize!

I personally do not believe in remote viewing as it is presented, astral travel... perhaps. As I said much earlier, time is subjective, it is personal. Days can seem to drag on forever, is this an illusion, or is it to the observer a reality? People sometimes talk of subjective vs. objective time (although time cannot be objective truly, since it is relative).

What about looking at an old photograph? This is an object that was created in a certain time and place, which is now past. However, the photograph spans time in that the object still exists after time has passed. You could call this time travel, you are viewing an object created in a time we no longer have access to, the photograph itself is a time traveler.

[RedDog]

No Project, You are not annoying me, I'm annoying myself when I attempt to step outside my perspective of reality. It is the only way to view time with any hope of comprehending its true nature. My limited view of reality is constraining my perception of something which spands the universe.

Truth is like herding cats, or holding onto smoke, there is a flaw in the logic of the attempt from my relative perspective.

So I appreciate your attempts to shine a light on my path, but I'm caught up in watching my feet

[Divinorumus]

Time is a measurement of movement, that's all.

[Project]

I think meditation may help. Oh, psychedelics too.

[earthist]

I've been dialogging with a few friends about this question: "What is Time"? Something which is typically debated with college philosophy students over beer and wine. It even crops up here in a few forum post (What is Love?)

Project has handled the physics side of this very well, but there's more here than physics. Perhaps you can have some fun reading the ramblings of someone who's been wrestling with how-the-universe-really-works questions for a long time now (pun intended).

I wanted to separate it out to get some feedback. I've been researching this topic of "Time" ever since the John Titor time traveler hit the internet 10 years ago. It is a bit like the Wind, but even more mysterious, in that you cannot see it, touch it, taste it or smell it. Yet we seem to experience it all the "time". It is everywhere, heck it is even at the top of this web page!

You can see it, at least as much as you can see length and width, for instance. When you look at a distant star or galaxy, it's easy to understand that your seeing something that happened a long time ago. I'ts a little harder to see that the same holds true when you're looking at something (let's use a bug for example) that's less than a foot away. The bug you're seeing is an image of something that happened in the past, albeit VERY recently. We think of this near and far dimension as space, but we could just as easily call it time. Another way to put it is to say that there are length and width spatial dimensions, but when we add depth, what we're really adding is a time dimension. Note that I'm leaving movement out of this for now; that'll come in a minute.

So here are my thoughts. As I try to become aware of time, the best way for me to see it, is to try and take a broader view...stand back a bit.

For me, it is like awakening to my current thoughts and experiences, as being like the tip of a phonograph needle. I'm aware that what is happening in "real time" is nothing more than my life scrapping along the phonograph and bouncing about the grooves and pits. This is what often feels like being out of control. Time can then be thought of as the vinyl disc spinning beneath my needle consciousness.

I don't know if this is a great analogy of time, as it implies that time is already recorded, past, present and future. Plus a vinyl record is more like a 2-dimensional disc and I'm seeing time or the record of it, more like a bowling ball. (A sphere!!, Planet, Sun, Circle, once broken is a
lineal sine wave...ie time)

If it helps, think of it as a read-write head rather than a phono needle. I think it's self-evidently true that we can only interact with the physical universe in the present. It's also evident that no one of us is 'in charge' of making things happen in the physical universe. In that respect, then, we are, as you say, "out of control."

As for the spherical nature of time, it is common for shamanic types (me, for instance) to make magic with circles. The analogy helps us to get our minds around cyclical events, and some of us feel we can better 'align' ourselves with the forces and beings active in whatever present we are trying to influence. (Whether it works or not is a matter of opinion.) The physical universe truth, however, is spirals (or helixes, perhaps?), represented in 2 dimensions as sine waves. We talk about repeating seasons, for instance, but the fact is that summer 2008 is NOT the same as summer 2007. The circle is an analogy only.

Broken is the way we experience time. In a lineal fashion. If the true nature of time is sphereical, then our experience of it is part of the problem.

Well, I'm pretty sure that time is, in fact, 'broken' into 'instants' for lack of a better term, but that gets into one of my wackier ideas, and I'll leave it for another time and another thread -- maybe.

I'm of the opinion that Time follows some of the same rules and natural laws as the rest of creation, so the shape of time should follow the same spherical nature of atoms and planets.

When we view something like our planet from far enough away, we see it as "whole", round, no peaks, valleys, corners, nations, etc, but complete within itself. In nature, this occurs as a result of equal pressure being applied to anything (not necessarily just matter) and given "time" all things will eventully reach this shape.

The sphere is a single instant image only. Remember that the whole sphere is also moving in space, and any spheres within it (thinking of the planet here) are also moving. Again, Earth-at-instant-number-one is DEFFERENT than Earth-at-instant-number-two. If it were otherwise, nothing could change.

The bible has some interesing things to say about the beginning of "time".
"In the beginning the world was without form..." a non-discript shape. From the largest to the smallest structures, all began with this form and continually work towards either maintaining it or reverting back to it.

Without form is the key here, I think. I think there is a 'spiritual' universe, and that universe is without time as well as without form. The physical universe, however, doesn't exist without change, and that IS time. Time is not just a measurement, it is awareness of change. The measurement is arbitrary: minute, year, atomic decay, whatever; but change -- movement -- is necessary to the existence of anything within the physical universe. Whether we're working to maintain or revert to/with the spiritual is another of those matters of opinion. Perhaps you'd want to look over my post in the "Who is the I" thread here: http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/s...?t=5494&page=5

So what are the "rules" about time? It obviously does not contain any matter, so does it follow the same rules that the rest of matter/energy do?

A question that man has pondered for 2500 years is; what time actually is; whether time exists when nothing is changing, nothing is moving.

Sure, time contains matter; it contains ALL matter, every bit of it down to the smallest quark (or string). Everything moves in the physical universe. The only static occurs in the spiritual. I don't think you can understand, or even begin to discuss time unless you're willing to defferentiate. You don't have to necessarily call it spiritual. You can call it the other-six-dimensions (string theory), or you can call it the 'unseen,' or you can call it the shadow-world, or whatever you choose, My point is that it's NOT the physical universe.

One question I find most interesting is...what are the neural mechanisms that account for our experience of time. Most of us can mark the passing of time on a subconscious level with amazing accuracy. Why? How?

Again, I'm treading into a bit of wackiness here, so I'll make it brief and leave it for another time. Our bodies are living beings in their own right. They have evolved within the physical universe, and are quite well attuned to its movements. One place we observe this is in what we call the sub-conscious mind. So, my hypothetical answer to your neural mechanism question is that our bodies track time quite well. (You have to be able to tap into that, though, if you want to know what time it is without looking at a clock, and not everyone can do that easily).

Philosophers of time are deeply divided on the question on what sort of ontological (what exists, or the study of reality) differences there are among the present, past and future.

The past is everything that exists 'out there.' The present is 'me.' The difference between them is what I call 'self-awareness.' You can say that there is no time if you want, but you MUST also say that there is no 'me.' The future has no existence in time or space. It exists only in the spiritual if we're talking about intent; otherwise it's just particles following Newton's law that says particles in motion tend to stay that way, and so forth. We intend from the spiritual in order to manifest the future into the physical. Of course, there are billions of us (humans) not to mention those body-beings (I call them evolutionary beings) if you credit that. That makes it iffy at best as to who's intent is going to manifest when. For those who don't intend, we have 'destiny.'

There are three competing theories. “Presentists” argue that necessarily only present objects and present experiences are real; and we conscious beings recognize this in the special "vividness" of our present experience. According to the “Growing-Universe theory”, the past and present are both real, but the future is not. The third and more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past and future because the differences are merely subjective. This view is called "eternalism" or "the block universe theory."

This controversy raises the issue of tenseless versus tensed theories of time. It may be the flaw in our logic to view the construct of time either way. It is very difficult to have an unbiased discussion on time when our language is full of tenses, past present and future.

Gee, I think I can claim all of the three categories, do I have to choose one?

--------------------------

I agree that time is mutable, but not that it is a measurement, if that were true then without man in the universe would there still be time?

Physicists make man out to be pretty important in measurement issues. I think this is largely due to the famous "2-slit experiment" wherein the results change depending on whether someone counts the input. I am personally not convinced though. I suspect that a cat simply paying attention to blinking lights that reflect the input (with no ability to count them) might change the results as well. As far as I know, that experiment hasn't been tried. Meanwhile, I will opine that time is the change itself, and whether it's measured by a human, or observed (with attention) by another being, it's real. In other words, if the tree falls when no person is around, I say it does make a noise. Even the plants will notice something like that. Any other answer seems arrogant in the extreme from where I sit. JMO.

Anyway, it's the measurement of time that's mutable. Your ruler can be different than mine. You say 'it' happened at X time, and I say 'it' happened at Y time, but either way no one is denying that 'it' happened. Of course, you can say that change is change, NOT time, and that time is the measurement of change, but I think that's one of the things that serves merely to confuse the issue. It's semantics, but it's important semantics, I think.

Time appears to be an experience, unlike the wind, which is an effect of matter. If we are the experiencer's then logic says we should be able to change the way we experience time.

These are thought experiments, fun things to force our consciousness to observe in different ways.

You can travel psychically to a distant planet in an instant, but you can't bring your body.

Can we travel back in Love? Can we travel to the future of Love? What is as fast as the speed of Love?

"Perfect speed, my son, is BEING there." (I hope that's the exact quote. It's from Jonathan Livingston Seagull).
Love is not physical, it's spiritual. At least it is in the sense you're using it.

---------------------------------------

It often feels like I'm banging my head against a wall when I think this way, but I'm trying to remove myself from this discussion. "just not the time you are looking at", or in. The observer is part of the problem with time. Or at least our understanding of how we fit into time. What I mean by this is best describe from the perspective of a Remote Viewer. These skilled humans are capable of stepping outside time and viewing the recessional galaxy the way it was 12 billion years ealier. They don't seemed constrainted by the "space time" boundry. This also seems to fit the accounts of Near Death experiencer's when they speak about the soul returning to its source. Time no longer is linked to that "space", if we can call the universal consciousness a "space". There appear to be some loopholes in the experience of "Time".

After all the physics stuff, you're now returning to a realm where I might have something to add.

Disclaimer: this is all based on my personal experience, and I don't claim to be right, nor am I a trained remote viewer.

I can sometimes go places in the present (at least that's what I think I've done). Call it remote viewing if you want. However, if I want to psee (psychically see) something in the past, I find I either have to have a personal 'memory' of it, or I need to find another being who has one and get it second hand so to speak. What I cannot do is move back in time. So, since I wasn't there 12 billion years ago I cannot view the universe as it was then. (Or maybe I was. See that other post I mentioned above in the Who is the I thread. I don't have a date on that incident, but it was a long, long time ago.), Perhaps there are others who were there, I dunno.

There is an exception of sorts in my experience. Locations which contain emotional energy from past 'disasters' seem to retain some of that energy (not physical energy, but emotional or of a spiritual nature, if you will), and I can perceive the event. I have done this when driving past a place where a serious auto accident had occurred recently, for instance. To my perception, the energy had not yet dispersed, and I could psee some of the wreckage from the viewpoint of those folks who had been there at the time. I have also experienced this when passing some civil war battlefields, though the impressions I got had virtually no detail, and just contained emotion as far as I could tell. If I hadn't known they were battlefields, I would not have been able to tell you why I felt the emotion.

NDErs is a different story. I have not had an NDE this lifetime, though I do think I 'remember' some of my previous deaths, and more importantly, some of my 'tween lives periods. This is another of my wackier experiences, and almost no one I've ever met or heard of talks about anything even remotely like my experience. Again, I'll leave it for another time, except to mention the one exception. Since you seem to believe in remote viewing, perhaps you'll credit it. It comes from Joe McMoneagle, though you may have heard it from John Lear's so-called 'Disclosure Briefing.' Lear reports that there is a 'soul harvesting machine' on the moon where we all go upon death. I asked him about it, and he finally told me he'd gotten it from McMoneagle. I don't credit Lear, but I do credit McMoneagle, especially since he's pseen something that matches my experience, and that no one else has reported. The machine is not exactly for soul harvesting, but that's close enough for now. I think the NDE experience is real, but it's a kind of soft-sell illusion. The reported 'draw' to the light, and all that goes with it are personalized reports of what's actually a 'tractor' that would lead them to the machine were they actually to die. Leave it at that for now.

Anyway, as relates to your statement above, I don't think that remote viewers can psee back in time with the exceptions I have given, but I allow that others may be able to do things I can't. I also don't believe they can psee the future, but again, I allow that I'm not the world's greatest expert on these things. (Heck, I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast back when I met Lao Tzu. If any of them would just give me next week's winning lottery numbers, I'd be perfectly willing to change my thinking (and to share my winnings).

Whew! That ought to provide some fodder for thought experiments. Hope it's useful, or if not, I at least hope it was fun to read.

[SquidInk]

nice post, thanks earthist.

[Divinorumus]

A second chance to glance back in time:

Ancient supernova mystery solved
Thursday, 4 December 2008

In 1572, a "new star" appeared in the sky which stunned astronomers and exploded ancient theories of the universe.

Now the supernova recorded by Tycho Brahe has been glimpsed again, by Max Planck Institute scientists.

They used telescopes in Hawaii and Spain to capture faint light echoes of the original explosion, reflected by interstellar dust.

....

[RedDog]

Time is a measurement of movement, that's all.

I like your certainty Div, and your simple statement. The truth is often more simple that we can say.

But, when you say it is a measurement of movement, what is moving?
Time? Mass? the arms of a clock?

Time is used to describe the measuring of intervals between events, so in that way you appear to be spot on

It can be a bit like the chicken and egg arguement, when we ask: What is moving? What are we measureing, what is the interval?

In order to investigate the nature of time it may help to break it down into five main questions.

1) How does time flow?

2) Does time flow in only one direction?

3) Is there a constant 'Universal' time?

4) Is time a 'real' dimension?

5)And can time be separated from space?

Food for thought.

[Project]

please allow my glib answers

1. From event to event

2. Yes

3. No

4. Yes

5. No

All from my perspective only of course.

[Divinorumus]

I like your certainty Div, and your simple statement. The truth is often more simple that we can say.

But, when you say it is a measurement of movement, what is moving?
Time? Mass? the arms of a clock?

It's us, our consciousness, our awareness, moving through the multiverse of infinite possibilities.

Each moment is static. Nothing actually moves, nor changes, within each moment ~ only our conscious awareness of it all does.

Think of this like the static pages within a book, each frame in a video. It's all fixed, static, locked forever as it is within the multiverse.

My view of reality leads me to believe this. Everything is an illusion. As in any dream, nothing moves, nothing within each moment changes, just like the printed pages in a book. We only flip through the pages as we experience it ALL, page by page, frame by frame, forever and ever. An illusion can't move nor change. Think of this as in Neo's matrix.

I really believe time is that simple. It's what we refer to as that momentum we experience as "we" consciously turn each page of the never-ending book call the Infinite Multiverse.