Do you believe that time is real or an illusion?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
22

Sorry I missed this, and appreciations on both your sentiments and sympathies.

Kant, in transcendental idealism with regard to time, had to rebut the natural philosopher in Newton on the one hand, and the metaphysical philosopher in Leibniz on the other. Hence, time was proposed as a pure transcendental idea, insofar as it is the fundamentally necessary condition of every experience, yet with objective reality, insofar as from that idea the duration, succession or simultaneity of objects related to such experience, receive their apodeictic validity.

1 Like
23

No matter how we relate to time, it should be noted that the majority of metaphysicians (largely before Heidegger) for some reason rejected time, trying to capture a snapshot of substance

24

I don’t see how solving the KE formula for t in any way demonstrates my assertion to be false.
Also, KE is frame dependent, so is a form of coordinate energy at best. For that matter, the whole concept of an inertial frame is meaningless without time.

To attempt a counter, think of a battery fully charged vs the same battery dead. That at least doesn’t directly invoke time, but the meaning of a battery charged or not seems quite hard to define in the absence of time.
Nuclear binding energy is another such example.

As @Meta_U says, “Time is right there in the equations”.

It might be intrinsic to the nature of perceived time, but not to the nature of time itself. You’ve repeatedly demonstrated a lack of being able to distinguish the two, as illustrated below:

This is a nice example of both kinds of time being referenced in the same utterance, without distinction, leading to confusion. Apparently physical time is referred to here as ‘time in the ordinary sense’, where perceptual (or concept of) time is labeled ‘time itself’, which it very much is not. Time itself is physical time. It is a mistake to move that label. Perceptual time becomes meaningful only with the possibility of perception, by definition. It is that latter kind of time referenced by “Clocks don’t measure time; we do”.

Wow, Twice I agree.

Neither may have a word for it, but pretty much all life has flowing time evolved into it. It is essential for prediction, something both flower and cat must do.

25

So much for the old saying that agreement never strikes twice between two who consistently disagree.

1 Like
26

According to the logic used in conversation, time progresses per decision.

I can go left or right, I choose left, I go left.

The decision made one of alternative possible futures the present, so time progressed one step. So that time is the sequence of decisions.

In principle conversation has the copyright on the word time. Which means that any scientific theory on time must negotiate with the conversation logic, to explain the differences, and to justify the differences. Because the logic used in conversation is itself a sort of competing scientific theory.

For instance negotiate in regards to the wavefunction collapse.

The position parameter of a photon is undecided and the wave evolves. At some point the parameter is decided.

According to the conversation logic of time, no time passes in the evolution of the wave for the position parameter, because nothing is yet decided. But time may pass for other parameters of the photon.

But at any time we can deduce where the limit of the evolving wave is at. Which seems to be inconsistent with no time passing for the wave. So then the wave must be deconstructed into a limit + the possible positions. And then time passes for the limit, but not for the position parameter.

Also of course, according to conversation logic, the position parameter of the photon as a wave, must be in the future. Because a decision makes one of alternative possible futures the present.

So conversation logic asserts that the position parameter of the photon exists at time now +1.

Grok AI says that quantum theory says that the possible positions are in the present, and not in the future at time now +1

So I think this is a very interesting difference to note between quantum theory and conversation logic, and maybe conversation logic is better than quantum theory. (because I once saw some other information theory where they used time now + 1)

27

I have reached the limits, beyond the limits, of my technical expertise in this area. No sense in me taking it any further. That’s not the same as saying I’ve changed my mind.

28

The problem is the assumption that what is real, must be so independently of the mind. That cannot said of time. It can’t be shown to exist outside the awareness of it.

29

Why do you say this? Doesn’t all the geological evidence, rock formations, plate tectonics, etc., indicate that time was passing before there was minds on the earth? The methods that we use for dating prehistoric activity require that time was passing, or else such dating wouldn’t work.

30

It doesn’t make sense to me how time could be an illusion. I don’t understand what it means for it to be an illusion that the existence of the dinosaurs, Ancient Greeks, and my own existence—and everything in between—to not be causally related. For there to be effects, there must be causes which implies that things occur across time, right?

Help me understand what this would look like.

31

In 1940 godel solved einstein’s field equations without the need for time as a distinct variable indicating it is not inherently a fundamental law of physics. Therefore it leans to the opinion that time as we experience it, as a flow, is a construct of the rational mind, but not a piece of reality. He also showed that in a spinning universe, light cone vortices were possible where a traveler reaching appropriate speed and distance (~.77 lightspeed i think it was)could arrive at an earlier point in their timeline.This would also indicate that based on our fundamental laws of physics all world events must exist including past and future so time can not just flow as we perceive it. As a platonist I believe the world of forms or ideas, Kants neumenon in some sense is timeless.

1 Like
32

I suppose that would indeed be a problem for those that assume that. That problem is a big part of the reason I am not a realist, and thus don’t consider anything objectively real.

On the other hand, I assume that that which relates to observers would not relate to observers in the absence of them, so that sort of relationship with observers is not independent of observation.

All this seems rather unrelated to a discussion about the actual nature of something like our time, with ‘actual’ meaning independently of how it is interpreted by observation. I cannot of course be independent of our observation, else it would not be ‘our time’.

All is well with us again. I don’t consider it to be something passing, and this universe existing without us ‘was never’ the case, in scare quotes due to the invalid reference to a 3D model of the universe which I do not hold. As for it existing at all, well, that’s likely an ideal, not a metaphysical distinction, so even the 3D universe, evolving over time, never existed until something considered it so. That bit is opinion, and more likely accepted by Wayfarer than most.

33

But there are many things that are objectively real, even for a so-called ‘non realist’. I think the point is that nothing is ultimately objective, which is the same as saying that there is a necessarily subjective pole in any judgement about what exists. But it’s important to understand that ‘subjective’ here doesn’t mean ‘personal’ or ‘pertaining to the individual’. The subject in question is ‘any subject’, or ‘the observer’ or ‘the mind’. I hope you can see that distinction.

34

Welcome the thephilosophyforum. I am a kindred spirit in this regard. :waving_hand:

1 Like
35

Hi and welcome. There’s a ‘middle path’ here, which is that time is not entirely objective, but neither is it an illusion. As humans, we have an innate sense of time based on circadian rhythms, hours of daylight, time of earth orbit and so on. None of this is illusory, but neither is it entirely independent of the mind.

Consider this thought-experiment. Imagine you’re a mountain with some kind of sentience. To you, humans are imperceptible, because their life-spans and activities are so short you can’t even recognise them (unless maybe they excavate a tunnel through you for a railway.) Rivers and glaciers, on the other hand, you will understand as they’re around long enough to carve pathways in your sides and literally make an impression on you. So in your time-scales, the human conception of time is meaningless.

The point of which is that our conception of time is very much tied to the kind of beings we are. The sense in which time is real, apart from that, is what is impossible to determine. So it’s not that time is an illusion tout courte, but that perception of time is essential to its nature, so it’s not completely objective in nature.

36

Thanks. It was nice to find a place to discuss ideas.

37

Let’s say that time is real, just like motion, activity, and change are real. The mind provides for us, a perspective on time, like it does motion. However, the mind can provide for multiple possible perspectives on time, just like it does with the relativity of motion. Not one perspective is the real, actual way that motion is, they are all possible perspectives.

Now, the problem is whether there is a truth to the matter or not. If we affirm that each one of the different possible perspectives (frames of reference in the motion comparison) is equally true, then there can be no truth to how time (motion) actually occurs in the world. So, under this theory we have no foundational basis for the claim that time (motion) is real.

So it’s useful to distinguish between “valid” and “true” (or “sound”), here. Within the theoretical system of relativity, each different perspective (frame of reference) on motion or time, is a valid perspective. But since the theory of relativity itself is based in the premise that there is no truth to the matter, every perspective provided is unsound. This is because the principal premise of that theory, which provides that all possibilities are equal, denies the possibility that one has the special status of true.

1 Like
38

The universe is constantly balancing between push and pull. That balancing has a direction and time is the human word for measuring points within it. What relativity shows us is that the rate of balancing is not fixed. Compress space with mass or approach the speed of light and the balancing slows down. What we call time dilation is really the balancing process itself being compressed by the field conditions around it. Time is not being stretched or squeezed as a thing in itself. The underlying process is changing rate and time, as our measurement of that process, changes with it.

39

If there is no mind, then there is no time. Recall what Heidegger said, “When one dies, his time ends.” - something like that?

40

And this is precisely the point, process, change is primary and time is just a derived or secondary conception. It is not time that makes change possible. Reality is process from top to bottom. It is process that makes the concept of time possible and meaningful. No change, no time, not the other way around.

1 Like
41

When one dies, the process dies, fractioned off.