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Several threads about time have run. Yet we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty, does time exist? Makes no sense to try to define time with measuring devices like clocks or calendars without first determining if time exists because if it doesn't exist, then with or without those measuring devices (including calendars), we may be wasting our time trying to define time on the basis of measuring devices and time-explicit and time-implicit equations may have no backbone to them if we don't know whether time exists.

A closely related question to the topic title is whether abstract time is objective? Because if so, we may never know the true nature of time. Now I turn the floor over to you.

PhilX

Modern mathematics relies upon the real number, which is bidirectional, for representations in physics. This is a mistake, so when we speak of three dimensional space we should remember that this terminology is couched in the assumption that the real line is one dimensional. Time is considered in modernity to be one dimensional, but this can be disproven by the same experiments which demonstrate three dimensional space. It will be found that there is no freedom to move an object either forward in time or backward in time, yielding the experimental conclusion that time is zero dimensional.

Most accept that time is unidirectional: it always 'marches' forward. From our perspective as objects in space we certainly witness a progression of events of the objects about us. Our best attempts to measure time rely upon these objects, and one of the most primitive is easily constructed by anyone with a piece of string and a mass at the end of the string; the pendulum. All time measuring instruments suffer this issue of being built from objects in space, and there seems to be no resolution other than theoretical constructs.

Modern humans believe that the past is fixed and certain whereas the future is unknown and only partially predictable, and that we exist in the present moment. This belief, particularly of the past as fixed and certain can be challenged. We have no actual access to particular events in the past to verify or amplify their accuracy. In this regard the one dimensional geometrical mapping of time in our heads can be challenged so that even the assumption of past time doesn't hold up.

I have managed to generalize sign, which is a key element within the real value. I call the generalization polysign numbers ( http://bandtechnology.com/PolySigned/index.html ), which is intended to correspond fairly closely to the naming of polygon. For instance we can have a three-sided shape that is a polygon and we can have a three-signed value that is a polysign number. The real numbers are two-signed and fit perfectly into the generalization, though there are some issues with the reuse of the signs as operators(the '+' sign has traditionally indicated both a sign and summation but this does not extend well). The polysign construction does allow for a P1 (one-signed) number, which is both unidirectional and zero dimensional. Polysign also have an interesting behavior that allows them to claim natural support for spacetime, with unidirectional time. Polysign also develop their own version of the complex number as natural in the family as P3 (the three-signed numbers). This means that the complex numbers sit alongside the real numbers (P2) within the family of polysign numbers P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, ... There happens to be a breakpoint beyond P3, where distance is no longer conserved on arithmetic product. I do not believe that polysign numbers are a final modification of the existing system, but they are a strong indication of a step in the correct direction. They are baffling to most humans, but this is because the two-signed assumption had been burned in and enforced from an early age. The simplest challenge to the real value as fundamental is to ask whether the ray is more fundamental than the line, and I affirm that it is since two rays compose the real line. We ought to build more complicated things from simpler things, but in modernity we do not. The only feature of reality that seems well matched to the real number is geometrical, but even here in a big bang universe the real value fails to be well named.

Short answer: yes, time does exist, but it is zero dimensional. We can do some computations with it but they do not render.

- Tim Golden

My thoughts are with the birth of motion comes time. Even our thoughts require the passage of electrons and neurotransmitters. Without that movement we would not think. As soon as something moves we can become aware that it was in one place and is now in another, we become aware of the change. As we record our experience of that movement we construct time. In truth there is only movement and we construct time to order and understand what we have perceived.

It can also be looked at the other way only with more difficulty as we are much more comfortable with space than time. It could be said that nothing is moving but time. And that as time progresses particles are displaced. This conception is too much for me to attempt to grip, but I suspect they are actually the same thing.

Time exists by the measure of how things have moved, if nothing moved there would be no time, and movement exists because time has passed, without the passage of time nothing would move. They are likely the same thing and our minds simply processes it like it does with all things, not as they are but by what means it can receive with such limited perception.

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Yet we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty, does time exist?

Time is the abstract Human construct used as a measure of our perception of the process of change of states. Time does exist, yet only as a representative measure of something. Time itself is not an existent process, simply a measure of a process.

As an abstract system of measure, time exists. As the OP indicates with the inclusion of the "(abstract)" qualifier, then it is assumed that it references this concept of time as an abstract construct.

But time is not at all scientific as physics has nothing to say about time, so I'm not sure why this thread is in the Philosophy of Science section. Perhaps the Epistemology and Metaphysics section would be more appropriate.

I have to disagree here SO about how scientific abstract time is. I checked M-W's definition of science which, under the noun section, says knowing (link:http://i.word.com/idictionary/science)

This thread is concerned with what we do know about abstract time as we attempt to examine this area as there will be those who says it exists and others who says it doesn't. If it does exist then there is a basis for science and if it doesn't, then it has no place in science. There's nothing to stop somebody from placing a thread in the metaphysics section if he/she wants to examine time from a metaphysical viewpoint. For now my focus is on the science end of things.

PhilX

PhilX,

What exactly would be scientific about abstract time?

Spiral Out wrote:PhilX,

What exactly would be scientific about abstract time?

This is the Philosophy of Science section. In the discussion of time in the time threads, abstract time was implicitly discussed whether it be to define it or in my Does time move? thread. If we know that abstract time doesn't exist, then there is no backbone, no underpinning to time measurement, therefore no science of time. OTH if we did know that abstract time exists, then there would be a science of time (measurement).

PhilX

PhilX,

You're basically asking if measurement exists. Do "inches" exist? We've already been through this.

Spiral Out wrote:PhilX,

You're basically asking if measurement exists. Do "inches" exist? We've already been through this.

Wrong. Just the opposite. Reread the topic title. I'm getting to the root of things. You can't do that with measuring devices such as clocks nor with calendars. So far in the other threads, abstract time is danced around without trying to establish its existence. You can talk all you want about clocks and calendars, which is subjective, but it doesn't say anything about abstract (objective?) time, does it?

PhilX

Abstract =/= Objective.

Abstract, adj. 1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea.

(Definition from the Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language)

You're asking a question that is inherently unscientific.

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Several threads about time have run. Yet we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty, does time exist? Makes no sense to try to define time with measuring devices like clocks or calendars without first determining if time exists because if it doesn't exist, then with or without those measuring devices (including calendars), we may be wasting our time trying to define time on the basis of measuring devices and time-explicit and time-implicit equations may have no backbone to them if we don't know whether time exists.

PhilX

How can one waste time that no one knows exists or not? What does it mean to 'use ones time wisely'? Maybe, use ones existence wisely? Don't waste your existence? don't waste your life. Dictionary meaning of life: 1) period of existence - meaning of exist: 1) have real or actual being, meaning of being: 1) existence 2) living thing, meaning of abstract: 1) expressing a quality apart from an object, meaning or object: 1) something that may be seen or felt, 2)purpose. Does abstract time exist. Seems so.

TimBandTech wrote:Modern mathematics relies upon the real number, which is bidirectional, for representations in physics. This is a mistake, so when we speak of three dimensional space we should remember that this terminology is couched in the assumption that the real line is one dimensional. Time is considered in modernity to be one dimensional, but this can be disproven by the same experiments which demonstrate three dimensional space. It will be found that there is no freedom to move an object either forward in time or backward in time, yielding the experimental conclusion that time is zero dimensional. []...

[].. Short answer: yes, time does exist, but it is zero dimensional. We can do some computations with it but they do not render.

- Tim Golden

Everything you have said here is questionable at best. Time is not 1 dimension it's not even uni directional it is not hence 0 dimensional, it cannot be proven it has any direction let alone one or many. Mathematically speaking we consider time to be indistinguishable from its co-dimension space. We don't assume an arrow of time, we don't assume anything about it's geometry, and in fact anything we say about the geometry of time relies entirely on the geometry of space, which we may be right on or may not. Seems to work though...

These are all moot questions which you seem to have inserted a priori assumptions on. Which is unwise if I may. Sorry about the cutting of the post it wouldn't let me post otherwise. Apparently that post doesn't meet the forums criteria. It's probably Zen.

PhilX said: "Makes no sense to try to define time with measuring devices like clocks or calendars without first determining if time exists because if it doesn't exist, then with or without those measuring devices (including calendars), we may be wasting our time trying to define time on the basis of measuring devices and time-explicit and time-implicit equations may have no backbone to them if we don't know whether time exists."

Actually, your statement makes no sense: Time is a measurement of the rate of change, so obviously a measuring device or system is needed to take the measurement. It's like saying, let's determine that other planets exist without a telescope.

Felix said:

"Actually, your statement makes no sense: Time is a measurement of the rate of change, so obviously a measuring device or system is needed to take the measurement. It's like saying, let's determine that other planets exist without a telescope."

Are you denying then that abstract time can exist? How do we measure that?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Are you denying then that abstract time can exist?

Please clearly and concisely define what "abstract time" is.