Video: What is time?

Philosophy
#1

The Time Machine by HG Wells was one of the first books I ever read from front to back, and I have been a sci-fi fan ever since… But I have never found a good working definition for time… This video lays out several theories which are about as good as any other. I do tend to think time is an observer dependent phenomenon and that the people, places and experiences we have are not just in time but a part of time… That’s just my hunch… One of this videos theories is that time is a living thing… but who really knows. I thought I’d share the documentary either way for anyone else who thinks time is weird and also fascinating like myself.

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#2

Time for me is a relational concept of experienced events in my life. It existed before I arrived and it will continue when I am gone.
I don’t think a record of time needs to exist for time to exist. It just does and will.

time (n.)

Old English tima “limited space of time,” from Proto-Germanic *timon- “time” (source also of Old Norse timi “time, proper time,” Swedish timme “an hour”), from PIE *di-mon-, suffixed form of root *da- “to divide.”

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#3

If we did not remember, would their be a past? And if we had no imagination, would their be a future?

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#4

I think memory and time are definitely related. I don’t know how you could meaningfully observe time without any memory at all.

#5

But if no one is there to observe time, does it exist? Does time actually have a speed of progression that is independent of how it is perceived, and if so why is it slow for some and fast for others?

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#6

our observations may be flawed.
reminds me of the particle, wave controversy. Time just like light, may not be a thing on its own but what a thing does.
Time could be the resistance or conductance of the aether, an actual physical reaction of the medium to a force, and therefore neither time nor light has a constant “speed” for the lack of a better description.
I think time is created by the actions of an agent in the medium. Therefore, no observer/acting agent, no time.
If you only observe, you are observing the time created by another agents actions, if you act you observe the time created by you. there seems to be geometry involved, the direction of the force/time you are observing and could cause delays or speed-up in the observers eye. doppler effect?

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#7

Similar to the falling tree in a forest? The falling tree would disturb the air waves whether or not anyone was there to detect the noise.
Time has speed in relation to the observer’s circumstances. When a youth of six or seven years old, my life experiences were few compared to them now sixty years later.
The universe has a time stamp, because our ancestors recorded the movement of planets. We really have no idea how old the universe is, the dates given are conjecture based on an agreement of the “experts”.

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#8

Precisely, Bill. “Time” is recorded in the sky - that is the only reliable clock and it has little to do with 365 days of the year, or 24 hours of a day…

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#9

I think they also use radioactive atoms to keep time too. I feel like for small amounts of “time” the sky is problematic, but for large amounts of “time” atoms don’t work

#10

That is the human made-up time that they make accurate to the calendar they have devised. The REAL clock is in the sky created by the rotation of sun, moon, stars and planets around this fixed plane.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

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#11

I have a bedside Atomic clock that receives the FT Collins CO time from their atomic clock.
They don’t seem to know either what time is, but they have authority to tell everyone what time it IS😎

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#12

Gets faster as you get older.

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#13

There’s an old saying that goes… the days are long but the years are short. That seems very true for me.

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#14

I had to read your comment many times until I saw a correlation with the fractional, debt based reserve system.
Now that they quantified time, they can steal it, sell it, lend it, borrow it and owe it to somebody else.
, This thought is really freaking me out, even though I still can’t see all the consequences of this idea. Is it ok to be scared at this point?

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#15

Back in the 1970’s when I was in graduate school, my husband and I decided to do a long bike ride around the area between Detroit and Ann Arbor. We came on this weird building dug into the earth that said Detroit Edison so we rode up to investigate. There was a man there who came out to find out what we were up to and he invited us inside. (Remember, this was when the world was sane. No tall fences with razor wire, no security threatening us.) He showed us this vast computer display that controlled all the electrical conduction and explained how he would shift electric purchase from hydroplants b/w US and Canada, coal generating plants and nuclear facilities. When the shift was made, there would be nanoseconds of dropouts which he then had to readjust, speed up the transmission, so that EVERYONE’S CLOCKS WERE ACCURATE.

That has bugged me ever since that visit.

In addition, do a study of calendars, those based on ancient cultures, those based on ecclesiastical edicts, and those based on the movement of stars and planets and you start to realize just how manipulated our “reality” really is. It doesn’t freak me out. It simply points to the level of lies to which we consider our reality (whatever that is!!!)

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