The Edifice of Time

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
1

It’s almost self-evident that time is inextricably linked to physical processes. It was “linked” by us as an aid for living and nothing more.

It is a mental construct.

Imagine that the objects of our solar system never moved. Not that they stopped moving but, rather, that they never ever moved as well as being immobile now. There would be no ‘year’, ‘month’, ‘day’, ‘hour’, ‘minute’ or ‘second’. If we existed in this scenario and there were processes. then we could not make any references to time. I could tell someone to start a task and not to stop until I say to stop, but I could not pay that person “by the hour”, unless I reference a physical process. You might ask me how long I worked. I could say, “Long enough” or not and you can be sure that I’ll want to be paid for my labour.

Take any inert object. If nothing comes along and “interacts” with it ever, forever, then is it outside of time or timeless? It doesn’t matter (oops). And if you object to my usage of ‘ever’ and ‘forever’, as they insinuate the “existence” of time, then I tell you that there is no time without matter–which I avoid, that being somewhat obvious.

Time is inextricably linked to physical processes, as we conceive it; as we wish.

I know that this truth may hurt or offend some.

As I’ve expressed it, does it bring anything to your mind? The most exquisite human mental construct is?

Mathematics.

Both are essential to our lives, literally to how we exist.

If we sat around, ate slept and sat around some more, with no place to go and nothing to do we would not need “time”.

Only then would the word ‘inextricable’ not apply.

Remove us all and what is left? Matter and physical processes.

2

It is a relative measurement, instinctively observed;
Time ≡ the measure of relative change.

You can’t have both “processes” and also “nothing moving/changing”.

On the contrary, matter is no more than a process of collective changing at such a speed, that it cannot be pushed to change faster and thus has “inertia” (the reluctance to change).

That is true. It is a measure of how much one process is changing relative to another.

I suspect I missed your point somewhere.

3

[size=125]Correction to opening post.[/size]

…If we existed in this scenario and there were [no] processes[,] then we could not make any references to time.

I apologize.
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4

That was one of the things I was wondering about.
A process is any changing and time is a measure of any changing.
So void of either, the other doesn’t exist.
…but then neither could we.

Time is one of the ontological constructs that we use in order to produce an understanding of the physical environment.
It “exists”, mere because we declare it to refer to something specific involving affect.
Without affect, there can be no existence at all (Ref; Existence Meaningfully Defined).

5

I agree.

Irrespective–or possibly not–I am aware now that I omitted the critical word ‘no’ here (and comma, not period):

…If we existed in this scenario and there were [no] processes[,] then we could not make any references to time.

I apologize and have posted a correction.

The only noteworthy qualification to my statement–and you may be unaware that you have drawn attention it–is that we would never exist in my scenario.

On the contrary, inert matter has no process–by definition.

I apologize if this was due to my omitted word.

I have an elaboration of my proposition that will be posted when I “get the time”. You may need duct tape for it…to secure your head, of course.

~S
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6

That is not the definition of “matter”. And “inert” merely means that it stays as it is (as a whole) void of being assimilated into becoming a part of something else. So even “inert matter” can’t be defined as “something void of processes”.

What physics calls “matter” is made up of extremely fast moving energy and nothing more than that.
Because it is internally moving (which is what prevents it from externally moving as freely), it is a process.
It has inertia due to that process. Without that process, it would have no inertia and it wouldn’t “matter” to us.

Without changing (aka “process”) there can be no existence at all, not even matter.

7

What does “merely” add to your statement? It is exactly because “it stays as it is” that makes it inert! And that is does so is the exact reason I use it in my statement.

I made a very fine qualification requiring that the matter in question “stays as it is”. Did you read it?

What does “as a whole” add to your statement?

What in the world does “becoming a part of” add to “being assimilated into”? That reads like one exquisite redundancy.

And this last:

was an attempt to make my head explode.

If you assert that inert matter is NOT “void of processes”, then we have nothing further to discuss as you’ve made it impossible for me to make any statements about matter that is “void of processes” as you put it.

If your point is that no matter can be inert, then please make that explicit. I can go from there.

You should be warned that nothing I have to assert about “Time” relies on anything regarding inert matter, real or imagined.

I agree. The part after “On the contrary, inert matter” is not the definition of “matter”.

~S
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8

I’ve decided that a better scenario is: Imagine a colony (of people) where day and year can’t be observed (Below ground, for example) and no clocks were allowed. These people would not be able to make any references to our known physical processes we have employed to construct the edifice “Time”: the revolution of Earth around Sun; the rotation of Earth on it’s axis (with the aid of the appearance/disappearance of Sun).

Carry on, as you were…

9

These underground dwellers would define time by:

  • falling sand in an hourglass
  • water dripping out of a container
  • burning candles
  • amount of oil used in a lamp
  • the duration taken to say a word … 1001, 1002, …

This assumes that measuring time is useful for their existence. It probably would be since some manufacturing processes require it. Also useful in travel and navigation.

10

The mind cannot function without a time reference, so yeah, they would find something.

11

There is no hourglass!! There are only glasses.

What’s the referent for “duration”?

These dwellers would define a system that might resemble our system of “Time” if they wanted to establish some order to their lives.

My mind did.

I have written (somewhere) that the experience of not needing references to time may be a rare one. I know it was a very valuable one. Perhaps this explains my conviction (level of certainty).

They might use burning candles or burning oil.

12

Only the word ‘hour’ would not exist or have a different meaning. So what? The principle of time measurement would be the same.

Something that takes a fixed amount of time to happen. For example, water running out of a standard container with a standard hole in the bottom.

Also, they may use the biological clock which controls activity and sleep to define a ‘day’. Once they have that as a baseline, they could divide it into smaller units.

13

No. It didn’t.
If your mind were to lose a sense of sequence of events, especially of its own thoughts, you wouldn’t have a mind, merely a gathering of randomly firing neurons… for a while.

14

[size=25]Did you notice that I removed ‘no’ from the “CORRECTION”? I corrected the Correction to the opening post.
The new scenario makes that irrelevant. Carry on, as…[/size]

15

Let me put it this way:

There can be no discussion of “Space” until there is Matter.

Suppose you find yourself anywhere. There you are. You imagine a scenario when all that exists–all the matter–is removed (somehow; the Magic Eraser–OBVIOUSLY.) from “Space”: We use this word for the reason that Matter has–apparently, obviously–to have "taken-up residence there, or here, if you wish. (The one over the other being “here nor there”)

What is left? (This question being somewhat silly, as we are not there to pose it.)

Nothing. No things.

Is there anything beyond this nothing-ness? That would be ludicrous as we removed the Matter from “everywhere”. Hence, there is no “Space”.

The problem with all of this is that there can’t be anything beyond everywhere and that nothing could have existed before anything.

“Time” is the handmaiden of Matter, the third dimension being…what?

It ought to be Matter. The reason? If we are going to posit hierarchical dimensions, then the dimension to follow the second must be something. If I were to attempt to posit some entity other than Matter to follow the second dimension, I would fail to posit anything.

All of the 1, 2, 3 dimensions scheme is faulty: The first two don’t exist (when there is no third), hence one can’t follow the other. This order is, yet again, a mental construct that springs from our most exquisite construction–Mathematics; It being an abstraction in two dimensions, sometimes (opps), three and with which we can–to our unending benefit–use to describe, mock and predict physical processes (change in matter) none of which could be communicated without our elaborate methods of recording and expressing “Time” (duration).

Some or our language (English) is curious: “It doesn’t matter. There is no substance to it. It doesn’t change a thing.”

Matter, substance, change, no substance, no matter, no change; no matter, not a thing. Curious.

And, “It hasn’t mattered for a long time.”

There is Matter, physical processes and a place in which it all, all of it, manifests.

There’s not much more to add, if you really think about it.

We (Humans) have a very elaborate and intricate system to…to what?

To mock the apparent perpetual motion.

The mechanical clock spins a gear or gears–once it is set to motion. When they are moved at some constant speed, we can establish an equivalence between 1/86400 of Earth’s rotation and some whole number of complete turns of the gears. This precise equivalence we have given the name ‘second’.

The clock, in motion, can count, keep a record of, accumulate a summation of each ‘second’ until it reaches 86400. At that moment, the moment the counter reaches 86400 and simultaneous to that moment, the counter is reset to 0–…, 86398, 86399, (86400)0, 1, 2, …The clock mocks perpetual motion.

Well, that’s not right. The classic clock records 12 hours. When it completes what it does twice, it has “recorded” one Day.

It seems–to me–that the duration ‘second’ was created to serve Man’s music. Or was it the waltz? Probably French.

Either way, fractional portions of Earth’s revolution around Sun have been deemed important: twelve to be precise. We gave them names, eventually (lol). And it was arbitrary.

Both “Time” and consciousness are the handmaidens of the 3rd Dimension.

You read it first, here.

I could go on and on about the arbitrary stuff: (24) Hour, (60) Minute…