A) different points in space
b) the nature of change
c) memory and anticipation
are these separate from each other or is it d) all of the above.
is there more? lets count them all. Soon. No, later. no, Sometime.
Time can be split into two distinct types.
a) Natural time. The flow of the seasons, the gestation period, the birth and death of a star. All these are variable.
b) Synthetic time. Hours,minutes and seconds. These were created by man to bring order into a chaotic universe.
do you happen to know what splits them?
I dont believe b)
our hearbeat falls under natural time, which gives us the idea of rhythm, which suggests order exists prior to our discovery.
To answer your first question. What splits them is mans perception of the passing of one event to the next. Thus he percieves the changing of the seasons as a variable passage of time but percieves an hour always to be an hour.
To respond to your second statement. A heartbeat is not universal. Different hearts beat at different rates. Also your own heart beat will fluctuate depending on how active you are. it is not about rythmn but time. Rythmn is just a variable speed that time passes at.
Time is a dimension of the physical Universe. As such, just like length, for instance, it doesn’t really exist. It is not a thing, but a measurement, an abstraction from the effects of the rotation of the earth (like night and day, for instance, or the movement of the shadow of a stick in the sand).
we measure time through change. but i think the actual nature of time is probably something closer to faust’s interpretation.
Actually, we measure change (movement, motion) with time.
You choice would be a) then, points in space. Because, as they claim space and time are inseparable.
If you say so, kev. I’m not sure I understand your formulation, but I guess I can take your word for it. For now, anyway. My “choice” really is that time measures movement - but not of other abstractions (points), but of actual things. Points can, of course, be assigned to these things. Are we on the same page?
Okay, but I think it is possible to perceive and hour as two, or monday as tuesday, by mistake. And so, with a chance that perception has gone askew, how can it cause the constant split? If the perception can’t be relied upon, time wise, perhaps it not a case of division, but a matter of degree. I hope that’s clear.
Now, about the heartbeat. How is it not universal? Think back to primitive days and imagine a heart beat going at whatever rate. Primitive man recognizes it. He suddenly has the idea to beat a rock on a log in the same rhthmic time. The birds in the trea call out, stop, call out again. Primitve man recognizes a pattern, and thus the concept of order get reinforced. I would contend there is no split. There is order in the chaos.
yes, we’re on the same page. An object can not occupy two distant points in space at the same time.
I was talking about the suggestion of movement. And you were talking about motion itself. Close enough.
You would probably find that this is the best definition for time, or the one most referred to. =D>
But I plan to study it, because it may not be the clearest defintion for my tastes.
faust is right. Change qualifies and quantifies time in various levels of human experience. I would add mood time to that of clocks and cosmic cycles. The human experience of time appears regulated by mood. If I’m happy, time flies. If I’m sad time lingers.
What is time?
It only exists in our minds. It is the period required for the mind to be aware of the material things in life. We associate time with the objective, the changing of night to day, the appearance of the full moon, season change, hunger, etc. In dreams, actions/events would only occupy a few minutes that in our conscious waking state, would occupy several hours.
Ierrellus - to clarify - when we are feeling energetic, a mile doesn’t seem like much to walk - on a straight, flat road with adequate landmarks (or mile markers), we can “see” this “distance” - we don’t actually see “distance”, but that is the common phraseology. When we are tired, this same distance seems greater. So we are talking about “mood” distance - the distance itself, like the time it takes to traverse it (at a given speed), does not change. So “mood time” is, at most, an extented meaning of time. We are actually thinking about our mood here, and not about time at all. We measure time the same way (with a watch, for instance, which doesn’t change at this speed). We just have different attitudes about it. The metaphor for the metaphor must be kept seperate from the metaphor itself, sometimes.
Time
A projection of possibility.
Time/Space being manifestations of the same thing in a different context.
Matter.
The manifestation of possibility.
But is possibility infinite or finite?
Time/Space, like everything else, can only be perceived in hindsight.
We look at the abstraction of a stimulation which has already occurred and so time/space becomes concrete as matter in the past.
What I see is what has already been possible and is now fact. But my perception of fact is also imprecise because all my abstractions of the stimulants entering my brain through my sense are themselves simplifications and generalizations of what is actually happening.
Reality is an approximation.
It is an approximation which, nevertheless, is relatively precise since we manage to interpret reality sufficiently so as to engage it and be viable within it.
One abstraction replaces the other, in a stream of conscious thought and at the speed of perception, creating the awareness of change, movement, temporality, dimensions.
But is Temporality/Spatiality only a mental interpretation caused by the stream of consciousness or does it correspond to an ongoing process, expressing a universal turmoil/flux where possibility seeks an absolute?
That is the question.
faust,
Yes. Each of us is his own clock, endowed with mood time and circadian rhythms. And I can see across a field, but must take time to walk the distance. Clock time is good for figuring out D=RT. Mood time for figuring out how complicated walking the distance might be for me. Again, we seemed faced, in attempting definitions, with a choice between an abstract tool for figuring things out and our personal experiences with the situation at hand. Can these two perspectives ever be seen as complementary at least, or as one thing at best?
Ierrellus - I do not think that these can be “unified”, but we can surely have a “holistic” rendering of time, depending upon our purpose - depending, that is, upon the context. I think, for the philosopher, it is well-considered to seperate the different ways we talk about time - to discern the different kinds of statements we make about time. It exposes our assumptions to do so, which is what philosophy is supposed to do - expose our assumptions. We can then talk more clearly about how both time and our assumptions about it affect our lives - another reason why we do this philosophising to begin with.
edit - by the way, I will here make a public promise to stop misspelling “separate”.
enough!
time is a conspiracy cooked up by the swiss to sell you watches.
-Imp