What is Time?

MoK

In this thread, I am interested in discussing time. I know that there was recently another thread on the ontology of time that I closely followed. It seems to me that people in that thread did not reach any agreement on what time is, though. I posted in that thread, but my posts mainly went unnoticed, so here I collect my posts in that thread and other threads in a single thread for reference and also as a base for further discussion.

There are three types of time, namely subjective time, objective time, and psychological time. I start with subjective time since it is useful for our discussion and easy to understand. I then discuss objective time, and finally discuss psychological time, which is hardest to understand.

Subjective time is a substance:

P1) Subjective time exists and changes since there is a change in a physical#1 (please see the Argument below)
P2) Any change requires subjective time (please see the Argument below)
C1) Therefore, we are dealing with an infinite regress since subjective time is required to allow a change in subjective time (from P1 and P2)
C2) If so, then there must exist the Mind that is a substance#2 with the ability to experience and cause subjective time
C3) So, subjective time is a substance

Objective time:

P1) Subjective time is subject to change
C1) If so, then subjective time is moved#3 from one point to another point by the Mind
C2) So, there is objective time that accommodates subjective time

Psychological time is a substance:

Psychological time is also necessary since most of our experiences are subject to change (please see the Argument below). Our perception of psychological time is subject to change depending on the subject of focus of the conscious mind#4. For example, we don't perceive psychological time when the conscious mind is very busy processing information and producing thoughts with the help of the brain. We, however, experience the passage of psychological time, and this passage can look very long when there is nothing that can entertain the conscious mind. We, however, cannot experience the subjective time since we exist within each instant of it (see thought experiment below), and we do not have any sensory system for it either. Therefore, Psychological time is not subjective time. If so, then psychological time is directly caused by the conscious mind. So, psychological time is also a substance since it is caused by the conscious mind and experienced by the conscious mind.

Argument: Consider a change in the state of something, X to Y, where X and Y are two states that define the change. X and Y cannot lie on the same point since otherwise these states occur simultaneously, and there cannot be any change. Therefore, X and Y must lie on different points of a variable; let's call these points tx and ty. ty, however, comes after tx to allow Y to come after X. This variable is called time (time here refers to both subjective and psychological time).

Thought experiment: Consider a building with two identical rooms so similar that you cannot distinguish them from each other when you are inside one or another. Suppose you are held in one room, which I call room one for the sake of discussion. Suppose that the building owner moves you from room one to room two when you are asleep. Can you tell whether your room has changed when you become awake? Sure not. Therefore, we cannot possibly experience subjective time since all points of it are similar.

#1 Consider an electron as an example of a physical.
#2 By substance, I mean something that exists and has a set of properties.
#3 By move I mean that subjective time is experienced at one point and caused at another point.
#4 By conscious mind, I mean a substance that experiences and causes another substance.#5
$5 By the substance, I mean something that exists and has a set of properties and abilities.

Martijn

Interesting post and well explained.

Maybe we, as humans, are simply overcomplicating something very fundamental. Time is inherent to reality, like space. We call it 'spacetime' for a reason. Time can be viewed as a 'dimension' but it is not a dimension like height, depth, or width. For example, we know that time slows down when you travel at extremely high speeds, or when the gravitational pull becomes supermassive.

You are spot-on with your dissections of subjective and psychological time. We all understand and feel what you mean, and we've all had these experiences. It is not possible for human beings to experience the naked reality as it is, because everything (including time) is filtered through our mind and senses. That's why the passing of time becomes kind of nonsensical when you are asleep. We still do have a 'sense' in this regard, we know how long we've slept (generally), but while asleep, we are not conscious, so we do not experience time. Yet, time always is. Time is just like space and life: it just is.

Sometimes, there is truth in simplicity.

unenlightened

Time is ordered succession. (So is space)

Consider a ball rolling down a hill. The ball moves from moment to moment always downwards in relation to the hill, which remains constant. Strictly, it is a matter of our convenience and habit to say that the ball moves and the hill is still. They move relative to each other.

But imagine, that halfway down, the hill tuns into a bucket of water and the ball becomes a fish, and the movement becomes the fish swimming round in the bucket. Now there is only one thing tying this moment to the previous one; which is the constancy of the observer, in this case the imaginer - you.

If everything changes, there is nothing to tie one moment to another; time would fall apart if it was just one damn thing after another. Everything is tied together by order, and kept distinct by change, and this is the nature of space-time.

Conservatives like order, and liberals like change, and neither notices that they are inseparable.

Hanover

↪unenlightened

If plank state 1 is followed by plank state 2 without apparent rhyme or reason and that negates a meaningful concept of time, either you're requiring a conscious narrative of events for time to exist (and thus a conscious observer), or you're requiring underlying internal laws exist that dictate this change despite it appearing random.

This is to say that if the ball becomes a fish becomes water, and it's not the lack of a conscious observer being unable to understand the progression that collapses time, but it's the lack of ontological structure that does it, you've created an untestable theory because it's possible laws exist that just can't be understood.

On the other hand, if a conscious observer arrives at a narrative that explains the plank state transitions, you now have meaningful time, even if the conscious observer is entirely wrong in his explanation.

This seems to suggest the only reliable description of time requires a conscious observer, right?

unenlightened

If plank state 1 is followed by plank state 2 without apparent rhyme or reason and that negates a meaningful concept of time — Hanover

Well no, it doesn't. You have there a constant 'plank' and a change from 1 to 2. That is an ordered change. To the extent that if the plank were to change back and forth from 1 to 2 to 1 to 2, one would have a clock - tick, tock, tick, tock.

you've created an untestable theory because it's possible laws exist that just can't be understood. — Hanover

Up to this point I haven't promoted a theory as such; I have rather proposed a meaning for the concept of time - the necessary ingredients as it were, particularly taking account of Einstein's theory that space and time are in some sense equivalent. But bringing the observer more into the picture, if the observer is placed in a sensory deprivation tank, then he is obliged to observe himself, his breathing his heartbeat, and the flow of his thoughts. This is an experiment you can do for yourself, and some people find it a wonderful way to relax, and others a frightening claustrophobic out of control panic. But either way, one of the things that many report is the weakening of the sense of time, somewhat as the sense of time in a dream is weakened. This suggests, as one might have expected, that the sense of time involves a calibration of internal and external regularities - heartbeat with music or the swaying of the trees, or whatever. Without that ongoing calibration, the sense of self - one's very identity - starts to dissolve, with relaxing or frightening results.

If one takes the point of view of god, which I can best describe by means of analogy with a programmer creating a digital world, one can see that the characters within the world cannot be aware that the programmer is starting and stopping the program as he develops his world according to his whim. He can quite easily make the program at some point transform every aspect of the digital character's world at a stroke. This would correspond to death and afterlife, assuming the character did experience it and connect his afterlife to his previous life in 'his' memory.

The observer's sense of time can be seen to depend on memory, an observer with no memory has no past and therefore no sense of time. Memory is the subjective continuity, regularity is the objective continuity.

This seems to suggest the only reliable description of time requires a conscious observer, right? — Hanover

What other kind of description, reliable or unreliable can you suggest for anything whatsoever, other than that of an observer? Perhaps a stick insect constitutes a description of a stick? And a bird might mistake the description for reality? It's a stretch...

frank

↪MoK

You recently went through a portal and ended up in Egypt where you've found yourself employed in a rock moving gang. Everyone pulls their ropes at the same time, and this is coordinated by a song that sounds amazingly like Delta blues.

As you prepare for the next pull, which kind of time are you experiencing? Subject or objective?

MoK

Interesting post and well explained. — Martijn

Thank you very much for your interest and understanding.

Maybe we, as humans, are simply overcomplicating something very fundamental. Time is inherent to reality, like space. We call it 'spacetime' for a reason. Time can be viewed as a 'dimension' but it is not a dimension like height, depth, or width. For example, we know that time slows down when you travel at extremely high speeds, or when the gravitational pull becomes supermassive. — Martijn

Correct, time slows down when we are close to a supermassive object. However, time does not slow down from your perspective, no matter how fast you move. Other clocks that move relative to you slow down depending on their speed.

You are spot-on with your dissections of subjective and psychological time. — Martijn

Correct. That source of confusion for many philosophers and scientists. The confusion is how we could experience time if we don't have any sensory system for it!

We still do have a 'sense' in this regard, we know how long we've slept (generally), but while asleep, we are not conscious, so we do not experience time. Yet, time always is. Time is just like space and life: it just is. — Martijn

I have to say that I don't understand the unconscious state now. How could a mind become unconscious and not experience anything at all? That is the subject of my current investigation.

Sometimes, there is truth in simplicity. — Martijn

Very correct. I think that the truth is plain and simple.

MoK

Time is ordered succession. — unenlightened

That is a definition of a process, not time.

If everything changes, there is nothing to tie one moment to another; time would fall apart if it was just one damn thing after another. Everything is tied together by order, and kept distinct by change, and this is the nature of space-time. — unenlightened

Quite oppositely, time is needed for any change, as I argued in the OP.

MoK

As you prepare for the next pull, which kind of time are you experiencing? Subject or objective? — frank

Neither. I experience psychological time only.

DifferentiatingEgg

↪MoK

Time is a unit of measurement. Pretty much it.

frank

Neither. I experience psychological time only. — MoK

Yet everyone on the team anticipates the same moment in time. This is verified by their pulling in unison.

Down The Rabbit Hole

↪unenlightened

Bertrand Russell thought the same but changed his mind following Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

Down The Rabbit Hole

↪MoK

What do you think of Bertrand Russell's views on time: https://archive.org/details/jstor-27900529/page/n21/mode/2up?view=theater

T Clark

↪MoK

Some thoughts:

In "Critique of Pure Reason" Immanuel Kant wrote.

Space and time, along with what they contain, are not things, or properties of things, in themselves, but belong merely to the appearances of such things...space (and time too...), along with all its determinations, can be cognized by us a priori, for space, as well as time, inheres in us before all perception or experience as a pure form of our sensibility and makes possible all intuition from sensibility, and therefore all appearances. — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Kant's Views on Space and Time

I interpret this in the light of Konrad Lorenz's explanation in two publications - "Behind the Mirror" and "Kant's Doctrine Of The A Priori In The Light Of Contemporary Biology."

What a biologist familiar with the facts of evolution would regard as the obvious answer to Kant's question was, at that time, beyond the scope of the greatest of thinkers. The simple answer is that the system of sense organs and nerves that enables living things to survive and orientate themselves in the outer world has evolved phylogenetically through confrontation with an adaptation to that form of reality which we experience as phenomenal space. This system thus exists a priori to the extent that it is present before the individual experiences anything, and must be present if experience is to be possible. — Konrad Lorenz - Behind the Mirror

I find these explanations plausible when taken together.

Perhaps the only reason we recognize time as a separate entity is because it has a direction - past to present to future. In general, the laws of physics do not require or specify this directionality. As I understand it, the explanation for this lack of symmetry is the second law of thermodynamics. Closed systems tend to develop from conditions of lower entropy to higher. Another way to say this is that interactions move in the direction of the most probable outcome. Broken eggs don't spontaneously repair themselves because the unbroken condition is very, very unlikely.

Then there are the consequences of special relativity in regards to time. The rate of the passage of time and the relative simultaneity of events depends on the observer's frame of reference. And then general relativity defines time as a dimension equal to the three spatial dimensions.

What does this all mean in respect to the OP? I'm not sure.

unenlightened

Quite oppositely, time is needed for any change, as I argued in the OP. — MoK

Quite oppositely, time is needed for no change.

jgill

This seems to suggest the only reliable description of time requires a conscious observer, right? — Hanover

Just nit picking, but "reliable description" implies conscious observers. If no observers then reliable description is meaningless.

Areeb Salim

The infinite regress argument about subjective time requiring itself to change is intriguing, though it leans heavily on a metaphysical notion of the mind as a primary mover. I’d challenge the assumption that time must be a substance at all. Many physicists and philosophers argue that time might emerge from relationships between events rather than existing as an independent entity.

Your thought experiment is clever for illustrating our inability to perceive subjective time directly. I think this would be a fascinating topic to expand with perspectives from process philosophy or modern physics

T Clark

What do you think of Bertrand Russell's views on time: — Down The Rabbit Hole

I sent the document you linked to my Kindle. Thanks.

javi2541997

Time is a unit of measurement. Pretty much it. — DifferentiatingEgg

What does measure the time then?

Punshhh

↪Down The Rabbit Hole

What do you think of Bertrand Russell's views on time:

That’s someone trying to formulate a logical language that explains things about time. The problem with logic is it can be difficult to relate it to things outside the mind. Our mind was born into a place with time (and space) therefore time was a priori to mind. So our mind and its contents are a peculiarity, a product of, time (and space) and other aspects of that existence. To make any progress outside of our mind we must find a metric independent of mind. Hence science and we know what science has found out about this existence.

Punshhh

↪MoK

Subjective time is a substance:

You seem to have smuggled in the concept of substance here. Does substance describe a thing, something that has objective existence? Or is substance a substance of mind, or intellect, or something immaterial?

2 By substance, I mean something that exists and has a set of properties.

Does something exist if it is an invention of thought?

Down The Rabbit Hole

↪T Clark

I sent the document you linked to my Kindle. Thanks. — T Clark

Got Russell on the brain at the moment. I'm starting reading his autobiography again - I think the last time I read it was around 2019.

jorndoe

↪DifferentiatingEgg

, I don't think duration is all there's to it.
Don't forget simultaneity.
It takes a while to get to the pub (duration), where we meet to solve the world's problems (simultaneity).
Duration and simultaneity together suggest dimensionality.

On another note, asking "What is Time?" is present tense, like "What was Time?" is past tense.
I'm unsure if examining time requires untensed language to avoid presupposition; it's a potential pitfall.

T Clark

Our mind was born into a place with time (and space) therefore time was a priori to mind. — Punshhh

Not according to Kant, and I have some sympathy with his way of seeing things. In my interpretation of what he said, time is something we bring to the world.

Punshhh

Not according to Kant, and I have some sympathy with his way of seeing things. In my interpretation of what he said, time is something we bring to the world.

I also have some sympathy with this, but I suppose I lend more weight to ideas that the external world is more external than that and has an existence apart from our minds. Although I don’t see an either/or dichotomy here. Both things could be so and our reduction to either/or, where this happens, as a limited interpretation.

Manuel

Maybe it's an emergent phenomenon, as some theories in physics imply.

Or maybe it's irreducible and hence not explainable by anything else other than our interpretation and experience of it.

MoK

Time is a unit of measurement. Pretty much it. — DifferentiatingEgg

What does that ever mean, a unit of measurement?

MoK

Yet everyone on the team anticipates the same moment in time. — frank

Each person in the team has access only to his or her psychological time. As I argued in the OP, we cannot experience subjective time since we don't have any sensory system for it.

MoK

↪Down The Rabbit Hole

Thank you very much for the reference. I will read it when I have time. I am very busy with many things right now. Could you please tell me what he is trying to discuss briefly?

MoK

Perhaps the only reason we recognize time as a separate entity is because it has a direction - past to present to future. — T Clark

We experience psychological time occasionally when our conscious mind is not busy. We live in the present. The past is part of our memory, and we await the future.

In general, the laws of physics do not require or specify this directionality. — T Clark

The time that is involved in the laws of nature is subjective time.

As I understand it, the explanation for this lack of symmetry is the second law of thermodynamics. Closed systems tend to develop from conditions of lower entropy to higher. — T Clark

The laws of nature are time-reversal. When it comes to a system with many parts, as you mentioned, the system changes toward a state with higher entropy.

MoK

Quite oppositely, time is needed for no change. — unenlightened

I have an argument for it. Please read it and tell me what you think about it.

What is Time?

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