but do you guys have any insights.... — Enrique

For "insights," hmm, what do you mean? For certainly, being all subject to/within time, none of us can have special insight. Except as ideas about time, but then, what kind of ideas? QED ideas? "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" ideas? Carpe diem ideas? Clock-time ideas? Equation-of-time ideas? Ontological, or phenomenological, or epistemological ideas?

If you work through this, likely you'll be on the way to answering your own question, or at least sharpening the question to a good edge and point. That is, instead of trying to gather a complex subject into a one, it may be best to start with it as a many and work your approach through particulars, noting similarities and differences.

So a theory, tell me what ya think!

The substance of the universe is essentially quantum-like, with intrinsic non-locality and supra-spatiotemporal effects, entanglement, coherence, synchronicity, retroactive causality, etc. Three-dimensionality is essentially a product of aggregation effects, concentrations of matter into particularized masses such as solids, liquids and gases, which however never completely lose the quantum dynamism of their fluctuation and motion. Time is a measurement of the relative motions of quantum substance's concentrations or "aggregate masses". Though matter is always in some degree of agitation involving quantum effects, the sense organs facilitate perception of "aggregation" or bulk effects on the body. This is why eyes, ears, noses, etc. exist.

Science measures the relative stabilities and movements of mass as temperature and rate using technological instruments, and scientifically models relative stability and movement by quantifications of three-dimensional kinetics such as heat and force, mostly by applying the framework of classical physics and atomic theory, a "fundamental particularity" interpretation of mass. Though three-dimensional aggregation effects are restricting to the movements of macroscopic organic bodies like ours, nanoscale biochemistry and matter in general are never disengaged from the quantum, so that quantum effects can obtain in nature, magnetoreception in birds, entanglement in photosynthetic reaction centers, brain wave synchronicity, and all kinds of paranormal phenomena.

I'm curious if anyone comprehends the relationship between mass and quantum behavior. Why does matter gravitationally and chemically aggregate, and how if at all does this effect its non-local or "quantum" properties?

Three-dimensionality is essentially a product of aggregation effects, concentrations of matter into particularized masses such as solids, liquids and gases, which however never completely lose the quantum dynamism of their fluctuation and motion. — Enrique

I think there is a difficulty with this perspective. "Aggregation" implies particles of matter which aggregate. However, I think observations show that mass is the product of forces, or fields, and not the product of aggregated particles.

I think there is a difficulty with this perspective. "Aggregation" implies particles of matter which aggregate. However, I think observations show that mass is the product of forces, or fields, and not the product of aggregated particles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Someone explain this "field" idea to me. I think of forces as the interactive properties of mass, and particularity as the classical interpretation of massive objects that is reductive to a certain selection of their perceived features for predictive purposes. The predictions of this perspective are descriptively realistic, though not exhaustive of course. The intuiting of objects as three-dimensional seems correspondent to their supra-atomic reality, when they are in the form of relatively large aggregations, but does not necessarily preclude them having non-local, "field-like" properties beyond the purview of classical modeling. I don't conceive contradiction between a particle and field interpretation, merely a honing in on different qualities, emergent from differing observational contexts, of approximately the same perceptual phenomena, but I could certainly learn more about the technicalities.

TIME

TIME?????

A quote from Stephen Hawking “ Before the big bang there was no time”. I take issue with Mr. Hawking.
Before the mind there was no time. I see time as an artifact of the measured mind. Before the measured mind there was no need for time or even numbers. I recently read a short piece on the Piraha who live in the backwaters of the Amazon; worth Googling. They are a society that functions without a measured mind.

I see two different times; time specific, that which we measured minders use as a useful tool that works and time general that has neither a start or finish until we show up and parcel it. General time is like space, where isn’t it.

What time is it on the moon, Pluto, Neptune, the furthest reaches of the universe? Where I sit now is a single point in infinity. If I see it as the general time of the unmeasured mind I see it as no different than the time found at the limits of the cosmos….the ETERNAL NOW.

Interesting….. existence requires space; time requires changes….could the definition of time be change; change in position, decay, aging, speed, growth. Change is all we have; what can happen without change?

If we change time to 180 minutes to the hour, would this slow things down? We know it would not. If we change a mile to 15,000 feet have we made the way home shorter? Obviously no to both; only our conception if we are still cognoscente of past measurements. It is all a mind construction capable of endless changes. We make our construction an agreeable absolute; and most of us never conceive of it being any other way.

Time an imaginary bridge from the past to the future; the present an invisible footfall on the bridge. Which is longer the past or the future; can it be understood without you or I? Can now exist or does it become the past before it is?

Time space, eternity, infinity all lie on the circumference of an invisible circle. Dose the, it is, it isn’t, circle suggest that time is a nano second of nothing without us. Of course if the dog is waiting (time?) to be fed the question only grows(time?).

Clocks sometimes run fast, sometimes slow what is it they are tracking? Waiting for the test results seems to hold the time as does waiting for your execution. Time waits for no man; if it did where would it wait; would that change it? Time is sensed without any measuring device; but we know it is there; we think. Most probably the earliest device for measuring time was the phases of the moon. The sundial and the sand clock came later with more daily specificity.

Could time be no more than a convenient way to structure life, time that we have constructed for our convenience?

omeone explain this "field" idea to me. I think of forces as the interactive properties of mass, and particularity as the classical interpretation of massive objects that is reductive to a certain selection of their perceived features for predictive purposes. — Enrique

I'm not a physicist, but I think that forces are commonly represented as fields. That's why there is electrical fields, magnetic fields, gravitational fields etc.. The question is whether mass is believed to be the property of fields, or are fields the property of mass. The relation between mass and field is a difficult one to understand.