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[3017Metaphysician]

Hello Philosophers!

I'm not sure whether this subject matter has been vetted before, but was thinking about some fun questions about the paradox(s) of Time:

1. When we travel from east coast to west, why don't you get to have back the lost time?
2. Is the Twin Paradox really a paradox, and can it be resolved?
3. What is considered 'present' time (how big of a slice of time represents ' the now' )?
4. Is Time itself a metaphysical feature or quality of existence, and/or reality?
5. Is time just a human calibration (clocks) of change?
6. Are unchanging truths like mathematical truths paradoxical vis-à-vis a contingent/determinate world of causation?
7. Add your own questions with logically possible solutions...

Here's just a little introduction to the 'unreality' of Time:

[Steve3007]

1. When we travel from east coast to west, why don't you get to have back the lost time?

Because you haven't lost any time. You've just travelled to a part of the world where the sun is at a different position in the sky.

2. Is the Twin Paradox really a paradox, and can it be resolved?

No, it's just an illustration of a property of Nature that is described by General Relativity.

3. What is considered 'present' time (how big of a slice of time represents ' the now' )?

Depends on your purposes.

4. Is Time itself a metaphysical feature or quality of existence, and/or reality?

It's the thing that clocks measure. Alternatively: it's an abstraction of the real phenomenon of change.

5. Is time just a human calibration (clocks) of change?

Yes, roughly. I'd say it's a human abstraction of change.

6. Are unchanging truths like mathematical truths paradoxical vis-à-vis a contingent/determinate world of causation?

No.

7. Add your own questions with logically possible solutions...

Why is the past different from the future? Because of the statistical properties of large collections of particles that give rise to the second law of thermodynamics, leading to the curious conclusion that the arrow of time is a statistical phenomenon.

[PoeticUniverse]

'unreality' of Time:

There are damning problems with the scheme of Presentism as a sequence of nows with the past not kept and the future not yet existing, the first problem being its unrelenting besiegement by Einstein’s relativity of simultaneity.

Second, the turning of a ‘now’ into the next ‘now’ sits on the thinnest knife edge imaginable, the previous ‘now’ wholly consumed in the making of the new ‘now’ all over the universe at once in a dynamical updating—the present now exhausting all reality. It’s not that the incredibly short Planck time couldn’t be the processing time, but… I don’t know; what do the readers think?

Third, what is going to exist or was existent, as the presentist must refer to as ‘to be’ or ‘has been’ is indicated as coming or going and is thus inherent in the totality of what is, and so Presentism has no true ‘nonexistence’ of the future and the past—which means that there is no contrast between a real future and an unreal future, for what is real or exists can have no opposite to form a contrast class.

[3017Metaphysician]

I just thought of another one viz time and eternity:

What kind of time (temporal or atemporal) causes time to exist?

A couple example or interpretations of eternity:

For example, some philosophical examples of eternal time would be:

a) An unending stretch of time – everlastingness;

b) That which is entirely timeless; and

c) That which includes time but somehow also transcends it.

So let's use the example of mathematical truths. These are truths that are unchanging, much like the idea or concepts of eternity. And those kinds of truths describe ( and to some extent 'explain') the cosmos and/or physical and non-physical existence so effectively. Paradox?

Keep them coming!!

[PoeticUniverse]

We don't know the mode of time.

[Steve3007]

So let's use the example of mathematical truths. These are truths that are unchanging, much like the idea or concepts of eternity. And those kinds of truths describe ( and to some extent 'explain') the cosmos and/or physical and non-physical existence so effectively. Paradox?

I'd say mathematical truths are true because we define them as such. So they're unchanging because we choose not to change them. We created them as abstractions of our observations of patterns in what we observe. Starting with positive integers as abstractions of the process of counting discrete objects and going from there. So, no I see no paradox. Mathematics is useful for describing our observations of the universe because we made it for that purpose.

[Belindi]

Hello Philosophers!

I'm not sure whether this subject matter has been vetted before, but was thinking about some fun questions about the paradox(s) of Time:

1. When we travel from east coast to west, why don't you get to have back the lost time?
2. Is the Twin Paradox really a paradox, and can it be resolved?
3. What is considered 'present' time (how big of a slice of time represents ' the now' )?
4. Is Time itself a metaphysical feature or quality of existence, and/or reality?
5. Is time just a human calibration (clocks) of change?
6. Are unchanging truths like mathematical truths paradoxical vis-à-vis a contingent/determinate world of causation?
7. Add your own questions with logically possible solutions...

Here's just a little introduction to the 'unreality' of Time:

1. If by "lost time" you mean past experience, this is because we live forwards, looking towards what we will be our experience. It is not God who creates, it's us, and all the other experiencers.

2.A question for physicists not metaphysicians.

3. Wittgenstein: the meaning of a word is its use. Metaphysically time does not exist.

4. Time is a constant feature of social reality, but not of metaphysical reality.

5. Within social reality, time is more than simply that which is measured by clocks, it's also a reification of our attitude towards how we live with the necessity of planning what to do next.

6. I am currently trying to get somebody here who knows about such things to discuss or enlighten me about acausal correlations. Personally I have faith that nature is an orderly affair having been influenced by Spinoza. NB Spinoza said Deus sive Natura is cause of itself and is the only being that is cause of itself.

My opinion in item 6. is inconsistent with my opinion in item 1.
I am still thinking about it.

[Steve3007]

1. When we travel from east coast to west, why don't you get to have back the lost time?

1. If by "lost time" you mean past experience, this is because we live forwards, looking towards what we will be our experience. It is not God who creates, it's us, and all the other experiencers.

I assumed it to be a question about travelling from the east coast of the US to the west coast of the US. So I assumed it to be a question about moving between the time zones into which we divide the world due to the fact that it's a rotating sphere. Maybe I was wrong to assume that. If not (if I was right to assume that), I don't know why anybody would think that travelling like that involves "losing time" in any way that we wouldn't lose that time by staying in one place. Obviously, like most people, I tend to fiddle with my watch when I've moved between time zones like that. But fiddling with my watch doesn't constitute losing time. Not to me anyway! If I decided to move my watch 2 hours forward right now, I'd be very surprised if anyone concluded that I'd somehow lost 2 hours!

But maybe I was wrong and it was a question about Special and General Relativity, related to that experiment which involved flying an atomic clock around the world.

[Belindi]

1. When we travel from east coast to west, why don't you get to have back the lost time?

1. If by "lost time" you mean past experience, this is because we live forwards, looking towards what we will be our experience. It is not God who creates, it's us, and all the other experiencers.

I assumed it to be a question about travelling from the east coast of the US to the west coast of the US. So I assumed it to be a question about moving between the time zones into which we divide the world due to the fact that it's a rotating sphere. Maybe I was wrong to assume that. If not (if I was right to assume that), I don't know why anybody would think that travelling like that involves "losing time" in any way that we wouldn't lose that time by staying in one place. Obviously, like most people, I tend to fiddle with my watch when I've moved between time zones like that. But fiddling with my watch doesn't constitute losing time. Not to me anyway! If I decided to move my watch 2 hours forward right now, I'd be very surprised if anyone concluded that I'd somehow lost 2 hours!

But maybe I was wrong and it was a question about Special and General Relativity, related to that experiment which involved flying an atomic clock around the world.

Steve, I thought of it as a question about psychology.

[Steve3007]

Steve, I thought of it as a question about psychology.

OK. The psychological effects of moving between time zones? Maybe. I guess Meta can clear that up if he wants to.

[Belindi]

Steve, I thought of it as a question about psychology.

OK. The psychological effects of moving between time zones? Maybe. I guess Meta can clear that up if he wants to.

I thought the question was psychological as in basic attitude of all creatures that have the will to stay alive by venturing into the unknown future. In order to do so the creatures need to tell the difference between what they have done and what they plan to do i.e. differentiating between past and present, as we say it.

[Steve3007]

I thought the question was psychological as in basic attitude of all creatures that have the will to stay alive by venturing into the unknown future.

OK. So why do you think he mentioned travelling from the east to the west coast of the US? He could have just asked "Why don't you get to have back the lost time?", and then maybe read some Proust!

[Steve3007]

(I had in mind there "In Search of Lost Time" - the classic example of the book we've all got on our bookshelves but none of us have read. Apart from the bit about the madeleines.)

[Belindi]

I thought the question was psychological as in basic attitude of all creatures that have the will to stay alive by venturing into the unknown future.

OK. So why do you think he mentioned travelling from the east to the west coast of the US? He could have just asked "Why don't you get to have back the lost time?", and then maybe read some Proust!

Too much nostalgia is stupefying as I know from experience !

Travelling from east to west in America is sort of an iconic image of time passing, I guess. It has connotations of Americans for two centuries pressing onward and outward from known times into unknown times

[Steve3007]

Travelling from east to west in America is sort of an iconic image of time passing, I guess. It has connotations of Americans for two centuries pressing onward and outward from known times into unknown times

Yes, ok, I see that. I hadn't thought of it as metaphorically as that!

"Westward the wagons, across the sands of time to..." as the philosophical cowboy stranger in "The Big Lebowski" said.