It's About Time

[VladTheImpaler]

MrProLiant wrote

To answer your Mars question...No...you would age exactly the same on Mars as you do here. Your cells do not care how long it takes Mars to circle the sun.
Now, you want to talk about a few thousand years from now, and humans have adapted and evolved on Mars, we may see a difference. This difference, however, is not due to a change in "time", but purely due to the different cycle of Mars. Does this mean that martian-humans live longer or shorter, probably not. It just means they live "differently".

What if this hypothetical Mars revolve around our sun at near the speed of light. Relative to Earth then time on Mars would pass a lot slower than time on Earth? Would it not? So if you lived on this crazy hypothetical Mars planet for one year then once you got back to Earth it might have passed hundreds of years on Earth relative to Mars?

If not, can you explain, because then I’m totally lost!

[Philboid Studge]

Would it kill ya to glance at the Science threads before launching new ones?

Bastids.

[VladTheImpaler]

Philboid Studge wrote

Would it kill ya to glance at the Science threads before launching new ones?

Bastids.

Well, I generally don't even consider searching for information on this forum, because there's always several people whom continue to post 1000 worthless or retarded (poo flinging and similar attempts of humor) comments in any given thread making it sixthousand pages long.

But looks like that thread might be interresting, I'll check it out, thanks!

[a different tim]

VladTheImpaler wrote

What if this hypothetical Mars revolve around our sun at near the speed of light. Relative to Earth then time on Mars would pass a lot slower than time on Earth? Would it not? So if you lived on this crazy hypothetical Mars planet for one year then once you got back to Earth it might have passed hundreds of years on Earth relative to Mars?

If not, can you explain, because then I’m totally lost!

Yes it would. Yes, hundreds of years might have passed. You aren't, on this occasion, totally lost.

Exactly...this is exactly why time is relative. Relative to the object in question. We are all on this rock together, moving at the same speed, so time is "constant" for all of us. We have no means by which to accelerate ourselves to a speed where we can affect the "relative" time of ourselves any meaningful amount (some studies have shown that when astronauts go into space and come back, they have "lost" time, but it's mere seconds, and hard to quantify).
If we were on this theoretical Mars, you would still only live about 70 years....70 years relative to yourself and the rest of Mars (and by 70 years I mean gauging by your perception of what 70 years is in terms of life spans of "normal" humans living on Earth).

[Choobus]

MrProLiant wrote

We have no means by which to accelerate ourselves to a speed where we can affect the "relative" time of ourselves any meaningful amount (some studies have shown that when astronauts go into space and come back, they have "lost" time, but it's mere seconds, and hard to quantify).

Utter bollocks. The time dilation effects for any given motion can be calculated to high precision, which has been proven in numerous experiments. A common undergraduate physics problem is to calculate this. It is not hard to quantify at all, it is extremely easy.

[VladTheImpaler]

One thing that I've often wondered is if time is simply a biproduct of conciousness. That time does not really exist but is created by our conciousness to seperate events in order to make sense of the universe. This is just day dreaming and I'm not sure how you could even test such a hypothesis.

[Philboid Studge]

Vlad, why don't you take a stab at defining 'time'?

And why not do it in the It's About Time thread, which is a cooler title anyway.

Bastids.

[VladTheImpaler]

Philboid Studge wrote

Vlad, why don't you take a stab at defining 'time'?

And why not do it in the It's About Time thread, which is a cooler title anyway.

Bastids.

Ok, I will try. Three alternatives that may or may not be mutually exclusive.

1.) Time is what seperates one event from another.

I began writing this by adding "in the same space". But then I figured that no two molecules or particles can occupy the same space at the same time (can it?).

2.) Time time is experience.

Without time everything would happen at the same time, in an instant, there would be no experience for anything observing the universe. This is what leads me to wonder if perhaps time is a biproduct of conciousness.

3.) Time is change.

Contrary to what I wrote above (where everything would happen at an instant in the absence of time) time allows for change. Without time everything might be static, allowing no change to occur. I don't know if it is more reasonable to assume that the absence of time would make everything static or that the absence of time would have everything happen at once.

That's the best I could do.

[Kate]

[Rhinoqulous]

VladTheImpaler wrote

1.) Time is what seperates one event from another.

I began writing this by adding "in the same space". But then I figured that no two molecules or particles can occupy the same space at the same time (can it?).

I'll only comment on this one, as I don't have time go in-depth for the others.

Events are determined by levels of description. You can change your description and have a different event. So, you could have two separate events that are related to each other, and by changing the description of the events you come up with a third event, containing aspects of the first two, but remaining a separate event. Donald Davidson examines this in depth in his book Essay's on Actions and Events, and I believe it's in chapter 7 where he goes into event descriptions (as pertaining to necessary and sufficient conditions).

So what I'm alluding to is that Time being that which separates events from each other is an insufficient definition, as mere level description suffices to do this. As for Time IS Experience, this wouldn't work as temporality is a necessary condition for experience, and Time Is Change might be a tautology (I should say more, but as I said, I don't have time, no pun intended).

[Sternwallow]

Choobus wrote

Utter bollocks. The time dilation effects for any given motion can be calculated to high precision, which has been proven in numerous experiments. A common undergraduate physics problem is to calculate this. It is not hard to quantify at all, it is extremely easy.

Indeed! Once I had to calculate the dilation caused when I walked across the room.

[Philboid Studge]

I'm just getting into the Julian Barbour book mentioned earlier (The End of Time, one of a couple good reads I got for Jesus H Christ's birthday.). He would agree that Time is a construct of consciousness. If that's not enough to blow your mind, he further theorizes that motion doesn't exist either.

It is jolly good read and I feel no pressure to slog through it because I have all the time world, and then some.

[VladTheImpaler]

It's really fun to read peoples theories only to realize it's very much the same type of things I my self have been dreaming and hypothesising about.

[VladTheImpaler]

I just found this while searching for the book you mentioned:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/barbour/barbour_p1.html

Very interresting.