Between any two moments in our lives, it seems as if the interval is just one moment. For example, think about the time between when you were in pre-school and the immediate present. It feels like just one moment, as does when you got out of bed this morning and right now. Even though years physically passed between the first scenario, and just hours in the second, it still feels like a single moment. While it is easy to think of this in a retrospective fashion, it is more difficult to think about it in terms of the future. By this logic, it will be one moment between the immediate present and when we are about to die, and it will feel as if our entire lives were but one moment. Interesting, hmm?
Or perhaps the very idea of our lives is just a flashback ending in our death. "I saw my life flash before my eyes" Perhaps there is time but unfortunately for us it's already past and we skipped to the beginning with no fast forward options.
Anyone interested in a serious discussion of the nature of time should read About Time, by Paul Davies. It is very accessible for laymen and a fascinating read.
I've thought about this before. I think its because its hard to reference time with imagery. Thats why we tend to use numbers, kind of gives us purpose you know? haha Because the sun has always risen and set. Seasons have always came and gone. There have always been stormy and good days. Maybe if we could measure time with descernable imagery this would be different.
Maybe because it all really is one moment and we percieve time as something very skewed. Depending on your perspective it literally is one moment. Also, people can measure time with discernable imagery. I sure can.....nute burn for instance lol
What you're talking about, Phantom, isn't it sort of similar to the concept of a number line? Between any measured span exist an infinite amount of infinitely smaller spans... (If you stood against one wall of your bedroom and walked halfway across the room, then halfway across the remaining space, halfway across what was left of that, and so on... would you ever get to the other side?) So if we were to take a number line and notch in every centimeter and say that, moving down the line at a constant rate (because there is no time without motion, is there?) those centimeters represent single seconds, then we would have ourselves a standard interval for measurement. But of course, we could get in real close and measure a great many smaller intervals between each of our centimeter notches, infinitely so. We could also step back from this line a few paces until what we perceive as the distance of one centimeter is actually 100 centimeters, or 1,000 centimeters, and so on (as if we're holding a ruler at arms length and matching it up to the line from afar). So, the intervals can be infinitely small - I remember eating 2C-E once and laying in bed trying desperately to get to sleep for what seemed like hours, only to look up and notice that one minute had passed - or infinitely large - I remember that 2C-E experience like it was yesterday, even though it happened four years ago.
Practically speaking though we cannot measure, at least with our current understanding of physics, anything shorter than the Planck Time, the time it takes for a photon to travel one Planck Length. So, if we cannot measure or perceive it ever, does it exist? I'm not saying either way; it's just an interesting thought experiment to wrestle with.
Time just doesn't exist. "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion"
Agree. Though we may never know, it might be possible that it exists, but thinking about it is pointless and a waste of existence, and so far there is no real evidence that it exists.
do you mean life as one moment? Right that would get in the way for a second, skewing your perspective, but once you chilled out again everything would visibly settle back down, making it seem as if everything is but a moment again. If you pay attention when you are calm hours seem but a moment, therefore I think those emotions just skew the perspective. Uhhh...weed helps though
Right! Did you know theyve proven that radioactive decay is not right! The speed of light is a variable so all the fossils we have arent really that age.
Wow, nuclear decay is wrong and light speed is variable... well as an NRE student id love to see those sources. And there is evidence time exists, Andro mentioned zenos paradox which doesnt occur in reality because time exists. Likewise we see time dilation as speed increases. Its hard to deny something that we can see manipulated
Of course time exists. Just because something is hard to describe or quantitize doesn't make it any less real. The old saw of 'time is illusory' is just a cop out.
Id like to see evidence as to what the hell NRE even means. Well Im a business student and that means Im better linkage: http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/vstenger/speed_of_light.pdf http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092 Eat that Mr. NRE. NRE must stand for Non Reading Education.
Except that you treated a theory that C is variable as if it were fact in your original statement. I'm not sure what NRE meant either, I'm assuming some sort of engineering. The first link you post is an abstract. The second is a typical New Scientist fluff piece. It's an interesting theory and may well be true, but they are a long way from proving it. The math works under certain conditions but there remains no way to put any of it to experimental testing. The work they cite in the article is still undergoing peer review as well. Interesting stuff nonetheless, but hardly something to state as if it were fact.