MacGnG

if it's 1 am it's late but 5 am is later but it's also a lot earlier...

just stay up late and then it's early...

time travel
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i hope there is time travel cause i can come back and give an actually reason besides "it'd b awsome"

cAtT

so if time is manmade..
then so is science, to measure everything on earth
the attempt to explain "things" from scratch

and so religion begins...or was it there all the time ?

phyzix525

Well actually no, at point C and B the line extends both ways equally. Therefore they are the same point.

__________________
It's hard to remember we're alive for the first time
It's hard to remember we're alive for the last time
It's hard to remember to live before you die
It's hard to remember that our lives are such a short time
It's hard to remember when it takes such a long time

stingc

You're wrong. That logic doesn't work with infinities. Infinity is not a number in the sense that it is usually used. Your argument says that an infinite line is not even conceptually possible because if all "points" on an infinite line are actually a single point, then it is not infinite, in contradiction to what you started with.

Your statement implies lots of silly things. An obvious one is that it says there is only one number. They are all the same. Therefore concept of number is useless. Do you honestly believe that? If you don't see what I'm talking about, I can give an explicit proof.

nate_dawg

yeah, that didnt really make sense to me either
how can you put a limit on infinity?

George W Bush

I know no one will understand this or believe me because you all believe your lives are carrying on, but I've been living this same day for the last 14 years.

__________________
"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning"

"You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

ChrisJericho

I read Slaughterhouse 5 a few months ago and it really made me think about the concept of time. I agree with many of the previous posters in that what we commonly think of as time (minutes, years, hours etc) is of course a man made creation.

However, I was thinking about it, and how time relates to my own life. For instance, my body is composed of proteins from the fish I ate last "week", from the water I drank which came from the local watershed when it rained a "month" ago. At some point I will die and the carbon will be released from my body and become part of something else such as a tree etc.

If the fish existed before it became a part of me, and I exist now before I become a part of the tree, perhaps the linear infinite <-----fish--------ME-----------tree---> model is somewhat useful. Perhaps that tree already exists in the future and I in my current form am the past relative from the tree's perspective.

This is somewhat of a rambling post, but I thought I would just share some of my thoughts.

__________________
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing." - Friedrich Nietzsche

dalnet22

For some reason, I can not grasp time as being arbitrary. I understand how it's a measurement for human purposes, but it's still measuring something. What it's measuring is the elapse of moments - change. I don't see how there is any useful discussion with "time is arbitrary" being the subject.

The only way I see it useful is that it helps us realize that time travel is not possible.

noahfor

The way I've always naturally understood "now" is that it is the only real moment, not just the moment I am experiencing. "Now" is the way the universe is. It is the actual state, and every other state is either in the past or hasn't happened yet, not just in relation to "now," but objectively. In this view, the universe is a certain way and progresses through a series of moments or changes, but it's only ever one way. I realize that saying "ever" is kind of strange because it's like saying "only one moment exists at one time," which seems kind of obvious that only one moment should exist at one moment. But, existence seems to transcend time. Either something exists or it doesn't exist, whether it's in a certain moment or not. I'm just speaking about intuitions here. Anyway, I just assume this is how everybody understands "now" in their day to day lives. However, is there really any scientific basis for the "now," or is it just a result of consciousness or humanity. I don't believe time is man-made. That's like saying speed is man-made. Maybe it is. But, I think there are definitely temporal features and relations of the universe without man. But, the case of the "now" is a different story. Despite how I naturally think about the universe, I don't there is any moment any more real than another, and that this "now" is only real to me because I'm a being that exists within it.

If that is the case, then when I die, no longer having a consciousness to ground me in the "now," the moments following death will have no more legitimate claim to being real than the moments preceding it. Here is the proof: I exist.

curiousbear

It is all theory.

You dont travel at the speed of light, to return to earth, just aging one year, while time has gone far far far away at earth when you are back after 1 year...

When you manage to travel at the speed of light, you wont be a mass anymore, isn't it?
-----Added 25/10/2008 at 11 : 20 : 16-----
Beautiful Thinking!

If we can view Life as a four-dimensional THING, then Time is its fourth dimension.

One definition for life that I remember is "Life is a change of 3-dimensional world-space over the fourth dimension Time'

3GPositive

The time machine bomb...

Build a machine that sends particles back in time a small amount.
Connect the output to the input.
Send in one particle
Boom!

The particle going in has energy proportional to it's velocity. Just before it enters it also appears at the output = chain reaction and the sudden creation of a lot of mass and energy.