• Benj96
    2.2k
    There is nothing sufficiently evident to say time is objectively linear. Sure we can apply arbitrary measurements and ratios to it and call them seconds, minute hours etc and we can plot it on a chronological linear graph or culturally adopt a linear concept of it.

    But this is artificial. The second isn't inherent or fundamental to the universe but it is no less used in the majority of our most fundamental physical formulas, equations and laws to describe it. The second is in truth a relative measure of us and the universe and if we lengthened or shortened the second the laws of physics would move proportionately with it.

    What the second is however, is a cycle. The most observable objective and consistent measure we can make of time is frequency. The more consistent the distance between periods of a frequency the more accurate a measure it is of time. As ancient humans we understood the measure of time in this way, the cycle of the seasons, tides and moon, the zodiac and earth around the sun etc.

    Nowadays, cycles can be a little more accurate and invariable in measure than the ones provided by nature but to do so one must reduce the spatiotemporal element. Go really small and really fast to get consistent frequencies that are less likely to be perturbed by external factors.

    This is the atomic clock generations. Based on the incredibly energetic vibrations of electrons between energy levels as it decays and is the most modern and accurate way to define a second.

    So we can measure time in frequency but is time itself a frequency? Couldn’t it change and never return to an original state? Yes it’s possible. But then how does one measure it? And if one cannot measure it is there any reason to believe it passes at all. Furthermore if we keep increasing the frequency of measure of time we get to a state so energetic it is pure Energy no mass therefore no electrons to measure the frequency of.

    So how do we say energy has a speed? Speed is again a relative term to us and our cycles.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k
    Yes, and perhaps this relates to Nietzsche' s idea of eternal recurrence. I am not saying that I think the idea of eternal is a one hundred per cent accurate model, but if nothing else, we could argue that time may contain linear and cyclic aspects as it is a dimension of the unknown aspects of reality. We do not have to settle for lines or cycles and perhaps webs could even be useful as time itself is a great mystery.
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156
    The predominating argument made above is one based on indivisibilities in physics; Nietzsche's assertions are not pertinent here, because they're philosophical extractions. You can't have a transference between a material and metaphysical idea without closing the chasm inbetween. Secondly, stating that time is a dimension of reality's unknown aspects is very ambiguous. What are you attempting to convey? A 'dimension', when used abstractly, connotes a plane on which a phenomena unravels (herein, presumably the unknown aspects of reality). How do you suppose this happens? What aspects are you referring to? Time is, at least in this case, an observation defined by one's perceptual threshold - not a purely immaterial process.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k
    The point you are making that time is defined by one's perceptual threshold is the exact issue. This gives way for many possibilities and even Nietzsche cannot be ridiculed entirely because all we have is models and they are speculation.

    I don't see why we have to settle for linear or cycles alone because the matter may be more complex. I am not trying to fuzz the issue but how do we know if the cycle is an aspect of the larger cycle or if the cycles are part of the linear? I am curious and would like to understand this mystery.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Time is a ball (of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff), balls are round, cycles are round, therefore time is a cycle.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k
    I am not against your principle but I think the truth may be more complex. Is history linear or cycles.?Who are we in the scheme of it all? If it is cycles will we or similar versions of us exist in future cycles ?
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    It was a Doctor Who joke.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The question whether time is cyclical doesn't make sense to me but that's probably just me rather than anything informative about time itself.

    First, take a phenomenon that we know is cyclical e.g. your life. You get up in the morning, perform your ablutions, after a quick breakfast head off to work, play your part in the office, return home, dinner, go to bed, and you get up in the morning: lather, rinse, repeat as they say. Time, however, continues to progress in linear fashion. I mean you do what I described you do, say on Monday but when you go through the cycle again, it's not Monday anymore, it's Tuesday and when you repeat your life cycle again it's Wednesday, so and so forth. In short, cycles have more to do with matter and the way it behaves than with time itself. The mistake you're making if you are making one is to observe a car going around in circles in a parking lot and thinking space itself is cyclical. :chin:
  • Aryamoy Mitra
    156


    That's a profound question, but what precisely are you invoking in the juxtaposition of cyclical and linear time? Isochronous events that exhibit periodicity are the most trivial example of a physical state recapturing itself with the progression of a time interval. A swinging pendulum, or any other manifestation of harmonic motion, can act as a cycle.

    Nonetheless, one must describe material time in relation to another observable phenomenon; for most, this is motion. If motion serves as an inalienable function of time, then entropy necessitates an arrow of time that is non-recurring. This isn't a speculative conclusion.

    The linearity of time is merely a consequence of its unidirectional (presumably) nature. Cyclical time is inexistent with a few rarefied exceptions (such as closed time-like curves in Minkowski spaces).

    If one ventures out of the purely physical continuum and into the philosophical and psychoanalytic domains, therein they discover your question truly emerging. If one redefines time by virtue of the structure of human experience, one may then posit that the regularity of one's exercises, banalities of one's life and truth of one's motives constitute a cyclical life. Ultimately, we're all slaves to Darwinian ends, aren't we?

    Additionally, with regards to analytic psychology, it is oftentimes the case that one's present conscience is a function of their past and their archetypal predispositions. Time herein is of significant result too.
  • Daniel
    458
    TheMadFool makes a good point. In a set of repetitions/cycles, every repetition is different from each other. They differ by succession.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    Time, however, continues to progress in linear fashion.TheMadFool

    You can not verify that from the brevity of single human existence. If you are walking along a cycle that’s big enough and you are small enough the cycle appears a straight line. Just as the horizon of the planet appears straight/flat even though the planet is a sphere (sorry flat earthers).

    You’re highlighting a 24 hour cycle - a Human routine, but omitted the fact that cycles can be contained within larger cycles such as the water and carbon cycle contained on a tectonic cycle contained in the orbit of the planets, Which reside in the orbit the solar system around the Center of the galaxy, orbits of galaxies themselves. To name a few.

    I can’t see why we can justifiably disregard the possibility that everything operates on a frequency of cycles just because our “week” is different this time than last week or that we may not be around long enough to appreciate the vast spectrum of frequency. Cycles interact and that complicate the nature of their recurrence I’d imagine something that is always changing may be doing so because multiple components remain the same.
  • Benj96
    2.2k


    Could that not be because when you have 1000s of cycles operating in the same spatiotemporal location (earth) they give rise to complex and diverse Seemingly chaotic interactions with one another? It doesn’t mean they stop being cycles though.

    The cycle of respiration of animals and plants, cycle of an electron spinning around its nucleus, the cycle of homeostasis and hormone regulation, of night and day, sleep and awake, Water, nitrogen etc are all linked. Each one has a defined repetitive process but they all interact with each other at various stages along their path so ... could that not be why time seems linear and nonrepetitive?
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k


    Imagine a universe with nothing in it, that doesn't ever change. Time would have no meaning in such a universe. That universe could be instantaneous, or else could be eternally static.

    Now imagine a universe with one oscillator in it, e.g. a single photon with a frequency f. Within one period, we can discern different states of the universe from the amplitude of the oscillator and its time-derivative (whether the amplitude is increasing or decreasing). But there's no means of distinguishing between periods: the universe could last one period or an infinite number of periods or any finite number.

    Now imagine a universe with two oscillators. The frequency f' of the second oscillator is 1234/1235 times the first. After one period of the first oscillator, the state of the second has changed by at 1/1234th of a period. The universe is different after one period, after two, after three. Same goes if we consider the period of the second oscillator. Only after 1234 periods does the universe repeat. This is the new period of the universe.

    Now imagine a universe with two oscillators, one with a frequency of pi times the other...
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    If you are walking along a cycle that’s big enough and you are small enough the cycle appears a straight line.Benj96

    You can say that again.

    I think another poster mentioned MInkowski space-time and while I'm neither a physicist nor a mathematician I must say that if space can curve I see an opening for space to loop back onto itself and we get spherical/circular space. Can we do the same for time? It's common knowledge now that massive objects curve space and the temporal counterpart to that is time slowing down. Can we draw some kind of an analogy between the curvature of space, with every turn in it threatening to return us to the starting point of space, and time dilation, if precisely tuned, somehow returning us to the beginning of time?

    Any ideas what the geometry would look like?
  • Daniel
    458
    Could be. But what still troubles me is the fact (I think it is a fact) that every repetition in a cyclic event varies from the one before or the one after it by succession. So, even if something repeats itself with the highest exactitude (i.e., time), any given repetition would be different from the previous one. They are different relative to each other, and they differ by succession.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    Minkowski is flat spacetime. In general relativity, it is spacetime that is curved, not just space, so, yes, time is curved as well.
  • Daniel
    458
    Reality is a wavefront?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Minkowski is flat spacetime. In general relativity, it is spacetime that is curved, not just space, so, yes, time is curved as well.Kenosha Kid

    So, time can be circular then?
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    So, time can be circular then?TheMadFool

    My thinking was more that one can recover linear time from the cyclic times of many bodies.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    They are different relative to each other, and they differ by succession.Daniel

    Ah okay I think I understand what you’re saying now. They’re Inherently different due to the very fact that they are chronological and ordered one after the other. That their “succession” rather than I guess a “superposition” is a qualitative difference between them.

    But does that mean that it is impossible for the universe to ever do the exact same things twice? Because times passage as well as spatial dimension means any two things that exist must be in relativity to each other? The only thing I know about identical simultaneity is the existence of overlapping parallel timelines or universes but I don’t know much about it
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    My thinking was more that one can recover linear time from the cyclic times of many bodies.Kenosha Kid

    Let's, for my sake, stick to gravity and its effect on space-time. Gravity can bend space, right? Does that mean with the right amount of gravity we can make space curve into a circle? The near-circular orbits of planets suggests this is the case.

    If this can be done then, is it correct to say that the very popular idea of time dilation in physics can be interpreted as curvature in time? I watched the movie Interstellar and in it the astronauts age more slowly when they're on this massive planet near a black hole. I visualize this relativity effect in terms of straight and curved timelines. Imagine an astronaut in deep space, in zero gravity. There's a straight timeline betweeen faers 20 year old self and faers 30 year old self. If this astronaut is now moved to a place with high gravity, his straight timeline curves which means it takes longer now for him to go from being 20 to 30 years old.

    Does this make sense?

    If it does then time can be curved with gravity and with sufficient mass, time will loop back to where it began, just like space.

    My background is highschool physics and math with the odd youtube video on relativity so, take this with a grain of salt and dollops of patience.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    Gravity can bend space, right? Does that mean with the right amount of gravity we can make space curve into a circle? The near-circular orbits of planets suggests this is the case.TheMadFool

    No, gravity bends spacetime only. This appears to cause space to flux inward (i.e. contract) toward the massive body causing the curvature. It doesn't act like space is curved, rather like space is contracting.

    sk-f73e6124dcc05ff3d9a26a820136ba36.jpeg
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    But I can see curves in the diagram?!
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    But I can see curves in the diagram?!TheMadFool

    The left one? It's a diagram of space and time, not just space. That's what spacetime curvature looks like.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The left one? It's a diagram of space and time, not just space. That's what spacetime curvature looks like.Kenosha Kid

    Curves! I can see curves! I think I'm being childish. Ignore me.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.