The latest from the world of science: time might not exist. That is to say, time was maybe will be not existing. Or perhaps, time does not yet exist, but will in the future, unless it did in the past. Or both. Or neither.
Or perhaps time exists for some things but not for others. My head hurts just thinking about that.
Also: reasons why time does not run backwards, there are not.
So it could, perhaps, start running backwards at any time. Unless it has already been about to.
If time was running backwards, would we know it was running backwards? That is the question.
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July 29, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Jon Newton
Very witty comments. But do you exist? Or are you just a dream, perhaps a nightmare? Not very original on my part, I agree
Dad
July 29, 2007 at 10:58 pm
markk
If you are talking to someone who doesn’t exist except in your imagination, it wouldn’t be the first time, Jon.
July 30, 2007 at 12:21 am
Hindu Religion
Witty but we’re still beating around the bush with this.
Concepts may exist or may not they are still only IDEAS.
July 30, 2007 at 11:12 am
A very confused Peter Aldin
Did you read my SKYPE profile or something. My latest question on there is “Where does time come from?” I guess, now I know. It doesn’t. It’s not there. (Or should I say, it’s not then.)
July 30, 2007 at 11:17 am
Pete Aldalino
And why am I Markk in the last comment??????????
July 30, 2007 at 7:01 pm
markk
I haven’t read your Skype profile, but I saw an article about this and just had to blog about it. And if I recall correctly, you pretended to be me last time, so your computer probably saved those details.
If time is not then, perhaps somewhere there is a Neo among us who can bend time as he wills. Or perhaps not.
All seems quite speculative at the moment.
August 2, 2007 at 7:14 am
Kersson
What you are doing for the current second cannot be repeated anymore. Even if you repeat the same action for the next second, it will not be the same as the previous one, because you have accomplished the same action under different circumstances. If the same action cannot be reproduced in the future is because time exists.
August 2, 2007 at 3:57 pm
markk
Aha, but if time is an illusion, than … but how in the world would you test that?
August 22, 2007 at 9:23 am
Giovanni M.
Try to define “time” and try to define “to exist” and you will find that an entity you are not able to define is not the subject of a verb you are not able to define.
We have an intuitive cognition of what we call “time” and we use operative methods to measure it.
Generally we make comparisons between periodic phenomena of different frequency. We have not any instrument able to “capture” this “substance”: the time.
Generally we give to the verb “to exist” the meaning of “to interact”.
May be our language and our semantics is not evolved enaugh.
“Sein und Zeit” has been written yet … by a philosopher and not by a physicist … fortunately.
August 23, 2007 at 8:22 pm
markk
Time is a hard thing to understand all right, not to mention the notion that time is connected to space.
August 23, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Giovanni M.
I suggest to see how Nature itself manages “time”. How Mother Nature behaves? Does “she” consider “time” as an existing entity?
If not, why does “she” let memory to evolve in living beings?
January 6, 2008 at 5:00 am
Katie
I really love the subject of time, because it feels like such a cunundrum. I believe time is not real… it is just a made up measurement. This may seem like a good idea for working purposes originally, however, in this era it seems that people never have enough of if, can never meet deadlines, get to appointments or even organise time. So when did it get so complicated?
January 14, 2008 at 10:47 am
Archie Bonkers
If time were a dimension you wouldn’t constantly be stuck in the now. You could move forward or backward at different speeds. It’s never going to happen because time is not a dimension, only a yardstick. You are not moving through time, you are using “time” to measure activity in the timeless present. Now and the the big bang occupy the same moment.
If you can’t follow my arguments, drop acid.
January 14, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Giovanni M.
So does a dinosaur and its fossil occupy the same moment?
And (sorry for this) does you and your corpse occupy the same moment?
Why do we find fossils of the past and no one fossil of the future?
Time remains, at present “time”, a metaphysical matter.
January 28, 2008 at 10:10 am
pointyman
Time simply does not exist. We can’t see it, can’t smell it, can’t taste it, etc. Are there any machines that can measure it? Even the clock can’t really. With its time differences…
January 28, 2008 at 10:55 am
Giovanni M.
Try to start the engine of your car with an empty tank and if it doesn’t work tell it you’ll fill it after. Let me know if this hint has been valid.
There are states of the systems that cannot be swapped without changing the final result.
One time you were born, in Jan 28, 2008 you wrote your opinion here, one day you’ll die. You cannot change your last state with the first. It has not sense in real world. (What we know now is that entropy always increases!).
When we talk about time we don’t know what we are talking about, but if we use a variable named “t” in some physical formula we see it works.
We can say the same thing when we talk about “energy”. You can find a very good explanation of this concept on “The Feynman Lectures on Physiscs”, chapter 4.