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How could we relate to the world around us without the concept of time?
I have often wondered about what life would be like if I could not include the concept of time. It is in EVERYTHING we do, think, talk about, it is a component of life that is completely man made, it seems to me it is the glue that holds everything together? without it... what do we have? how do we explain? where do we stand?
what is NOW?
So, how would you explain " life" without time? the universe without Time? all your thoughts without implementing time?
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Yubal Masalker 200+
No time means no change, no evolution. Meaning, it is the ultimate death of the phenomenal universe.
Tim Colgan 50+
Yubal Masalker 200+
What I argue is that the reason we don't see processes occurring in reverse is that this is the very nature of the processes. The changes occurring within the process or within the constituents of process make the process moving from A to B and never vice versa. The scale of time we use to measure the timing of the process and it's other features, has nothing to do with the direction of the process. The scale is constant and what's moving is the process itself. Saying scale, I mean to time measuring instrument, suppose a watch. Saying the scale is constant, I mean that the watch pulses in a constant & known rate as designed by its manufacturer and what changes in an unknown manner is the process which is the very reason we are measuring it. Now, consider the watch itself. It is also based on a certain constant change occurring within its mechanism which we agree internationally to take as a standard. But still it (the watch) is nothing but a change.
I have other imaginary scenario of a different nature to show you how in my opinion we mix between human made subjective scale (time measuring) and the objective reality (processes in nature). If you are not convinced yet, I shall give it.
But first I want to ask you to try imagining at least one time-measuring of any kind – not necessarily by watch, but by even any arbitrary mean you choose like Sun, Atoms, etc, or even by your own memory or mind -- that any type of change is NOT involved with that time measuring. If you find one time measuring without requiring absolutely any change, I shall be glad to know.
Nick Korsantia
In regards to this statement- "What I argue is that the reason we don't see processes occurring in reverse is that this is the very nature of the processes."
why does the directionality have to be the nature of the process rather then the nature of the observer and the system that the observer and process occupy? I think a great deal of emphasis has to be made to the frame of reference in which time is being observed in and how the concept and the day-to-day perception of changing states is embodied within the observer. I think this is the nature of human interpretation of time, or at least the soft-wired idea that we have of time and change. Think of a ball moving across a table- although in your brain the cognitive process simply adds several picture frames temporally, more complicated processes interpret it as a fluid motion with directionality. If that is true, we may simply be extrapolating the directionality of time because of the functional utility it serves in our lives, rather then it being an absolute truth of the universe. What do you think?
There is nothing so stable as change
-Bob Dylan
Tim Colgan 50+
I think I understand your point about change being an essential element of time and that it is quantified by correlating it to some oscillatory event.
I'm wondering if your statement
"The fact you don't find processes going from B to A, make you to come to the conclusion that time only go forward."
is leading to the opinion that at a different location in space/time it might be observed as moving in the other direction (that is the processes would reverse).
ralph haulk
It has been offered that what we perceive as disorder is actually the very process of information we need for arranging things in newer forms. Time, order, and disorder. Entropy and information.
Tim Colgan 50+
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
Yeah it is for the system which is evolving into a life form. But not for the universe as a whole. The entropy of the universe constantly increases.
Tim Colgan 50+
Mark Meijer 100+
This is not to suggest that a locally perceived decrease in entropy (such as life) is somehow a "reversed" process. Note that entropy can only ever be *locally perceived* to decrease, when taken out of the context of its larger environment. Without corresponding (and greater) increase in entropy to make up for it elsewhere, life (or any other local decrease in entropy) would not exist.
This also speaks to the more general notion of the inseparability of local phenomena from the wider context. Or perhaps more accurately, it could be that the reality of entropy is what lies at the very heart of that notion of inseparability, because processes are all there is. Although I'm just speaking from my gut right now.
Tim Colgan 50+
Starting with a singularity (which must be the point of minimum entropy) the big bang occurs and the universe expands, thus increasing the entropy. At some point the process reverses and we arrive again at a singularity. Between the reversal point and the singularity, doesn't the entropy have to decrease?
Mark Meijer 100+
I imagine that the moment of singularity is the point at which the whole concept of entropy no longer applies, because all processes are destroyed and re-created in the form of the next big bang, right? This would be effectively resetting the entropy-o-meter, so to speak.
Honestly, I don't know :P
Budimir Zdravkovic 20+
I just know how to describe earth bound entropy. It's really a matter of probability, the only reason why it occurs is because entropic states are a lot more probable. These are states which we concieve as being random.
So the law is not like causal law of nature. Like gravity for instance, it is based on probability. Things could entropically reverse but it's highly unlikely.
Nick Korsantia
Rasmus Andersson
Nick Korsantia
ralph haulk
Making things "right" would then be an attempt to alter things as each perceive they ought to be, and that produces increasing disorder. Ideas follow entropy the same as the universe. Add to that Godel's theorem, which tells us that in any consistent axiomatic formulation of number theory(of sufficient complexity) there exists undecidable propositions. The most formalized method of imposing order will also reflect a measure of increasing disorder.
Which leads me to speculate on some conclusions below. If life is a tendency to combat entropy, it can do so only by enlarging its understanding of all things in relation. If it seeks to maintain its own integrity at the expense of surrounding systems, it contributes ultimately to its own entropy. I think it rather strange that when Shannon developed his mathematical concept of information, it was similar, if not identical, to the earlier mathematical presentation of entropy. If events in "time" are ordered by consciousness, then consciousness must reflect the very disorder of perceptions from diverse sources.
Tim Colgan 50+
Thanks
Indigo cantor