Quote:
Originally Posted by devonin
While we certainly invented the system of measurement (determining the length of a second, a minute, an hour etc) what is it measuring?
We invented the system for describing the length of objects, and arbitrarily created what a foot is, a meter, an inch, a mile, but you can't deny that length IS A THING THAT EXISTS even if we subjectively decided how to describe it.
Isn't the same thing occuring just as clearly with time? We devised, on our own, what the system of measurement is and how it works, but what is it measuring?
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Excellent points. I keep hearing this lately - that time doesn't exist - but nobody is ever willing to provide me with a framework of a universe that could possibly function without some variable time to account for the differentiation we see between one event that occurs, and another. People just think of time as what is measured by a clock, but you're absolutely right, that's not really what it is.
We just assume that this is the natural state of the universe by consequence of the fact that we are here, but we could take away time and see quite easily that the universe wouldn't exist...likewise the same with length, width etc.
Lamoc, if you'd care and still believe that time isn't real, describe how the universe could function in the absence of any physical way of differentiating between one quantum event and another - in layman's terms every event that can occur does occur, all simultaneously. This is essentially what happens to space and time right before the Big Bang...as space collapses into something resembling a singularity, time is also broken down (Because time is a component of space, as I described to Rich earlier), and as such events at that point cannot be differentiated. They occur on the quantum level without reason simultaneously.
This is part of the reason why physicists have no idea what happened prior to the big bang - none of our equations are capable of describing what happens at this point. Einsteins equations give non real answers, and other equations simply don't work at all because the components of space and time, normally present, disappear entirely.
You'll see you cannot describe the universe without time. It won't make any sense at all. Likewise you wouldn't be able to describe a universe where objects had no measurable size. It's a ridiculous proposition. Things obviously have measurable size, and this is a consequence of space. The same thing applies to time. All things have measurable time. If you want to argue otherwise, well, you're going against the grain in physics and any scientist would suggest you provide some research to back up your ideas :P