Time is real and allows change
Consider a change in state of a system, X->Y. Two states cannot lay on each other since the state of affair becomes ill-defined. This means that two states must lay on different points. This means that we need a variable to allow this to happen. There must however be a duration between two points otherwise the change will never takes place. The variable is therefore time.
Comments (28)
I didn't say so.
Quoting Rich
I was not talking about psychological time.
I can watch things change right now. Time at the very least is empirical.
I don't think that's the case. You watch things change, and you deduce that time has passed. In that case time isn't strictly empirical, it's theoretical, "if things change then time has passed".
- Metaphysician Undercover
So time is an expression of change, an error of language perhaps but not ignorance. It is evident that change occurs in the world and this we call time. We should define 'time' similarly to our definition of 'observation of change', rather than saying that two halves of the same walnut came from different trees. Time is not a separate thing we have deduced from empiricism, it is the description we have attached to our observation.
I think that's confusing the map with the territory. Time, whatever it is, just is. The modeling of time via mathematics requires a variable often labelled 't'. Time existed long before the letter t. Variables are a historically contingent abstract idea of humans. In fact letters of the alphabet used as symbolic variables in mathematical expressions didn't come about till relatively recently, in the 13th or 14th centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra
Actually you did. Read your presentation. You are defining duration as lying between two points. Exactly b what lies between two points?
Real time is psychological time. Duration is a feeling. There is nothing physical or v spatial about it.
You can observe things change but that is not real time, duration. We feel time passing even if we are not observing anything but we still feel it passing - except when we are asleep, which is actually pretty remarkable and science had no explanation for the mind changing into this rather interesting state.
If time just is what it is, then why does it move at different speeds at different places? Or are we not allowed to enquire why, because it just is?
You're taking my remark completely out of context. @bahaman said
Quoting bahman
and I merely pointed out that variables are human constructs, and relatively recent ones at that. Whereas time has been going on a long ... well, time. Therefore time does not require variables. Rather, variables are what we use to model time.
You are taking exception to my statement that "time is just what it is?" Are you denying the law of identity?
By Variable I meant something which is subject to change.
I said two state of system lie on two different points.
Quoting Rich
Duration is not a feeling. It is time elapsed between two events without that we could not physically reach from one event to another one.
If "two states must lay on different points", then why is the concept of time needed in the first place. If any body can be expressed as a set of points in space, then any change can be expressed as a change in the arrangement of those points in space...spacetime.
Fine but less than satisfying psychologically because it lacks an ego, which, I think is why we think time flows.
Because you need to reach from one point to another one and this should take a while otherwise everything elapses in an instant.
Quoting Cavacava
What do you mean?
Time would not flow if there were no constant to observe it flow.
I don't know anyone who cannot close their eyes and feel time passing.
So then your argument is circular. "Things that change require a variable. Why? Because a variable is something subject to change." Circular, right?
Besides, aren't constants variables? The function f(x) = 3 is constant, yet x is the independent variable. You are using a technical term with a different meaning than normal but not fully defining your new meaning.
But that is not at all the case. We describe things. We describe things changing. We do not describe time. And from those descriptions we make deductions about time.
Quoting The Curiorist
Change is not what we call time Change is change, and time is time, these are two different things. Take for instance a case when you would use "time" and try replacing it with "change". What time is it? How much time until we leave? Take your time. Etc.. To replace "time" with "change" is nonsense, and so it is nonsense to say that change is what we call time.
We can experience psychological duration but that is different from duration/real duration which takes place independent of us.
It is not circular. Things which change require a variable so we could distinguish different state of them. Without the variable the change cannot manifest itself.
Quoting fishfry
No it is not circular.
Quoting fishfry
Constant are not variable but you can have a function which is constant.
Why would you have to be able to communicate to experience duration?
No, I mean why wouldn't you think that a rock could experience duration but not be able to tell you about that experience? We would think that other animals experience duration but can't tell you about it. Probably even plants experience duration, and can't tell you about it. So why not a rock?
I think I was talking about another issue.
If two different things experience time in two different ways, this does not mean that one of them does not experience time at all. If we know that different types of living things experience time in different ways, why not allow that inanimate things also experience time in a different way? It comes down to a question of what do you mean by "experience"? If you mean "to observe and remember", then I don't think that rocks experience duration. But if you mean "to be affected by", then I think that rocks experience duration.
Notice that if you are hard determinist then "observe and remember" is reducible to "to be affect by" and then there is no real separation between the way a rock experiences duration and the way that a human being experiences duration.
Personally, I would not want to speculate on how rocks may experience time. However, from direct experience, I understand how I experience time. Admittedly this state changes in nature all the time which is definitely of some interest. When I understand this better, it may be appropriate to understand if it is possible that duration, an experience of mind, can be extended to living plants or non-living rocks.