If existence unfolds and no one is around to perceive it, does time exist?

Great Debates
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Stephen Hawking discusses the psychological reality of time, where people feel there is a unidirectional flow and succession of events. Let me see if I can summarize well what Hawking states about time:

To explain how time can be conceived, Stephen Hawking starts from light, whose speed is always the same regardless of the speed its source has. An event under observation will therefore show a dot-like present time, a cone-like future time (formed by the light spreading out from the event and creating a three-dimensional cone within the four-dimensional timespace) opened in the direction of time flow, and a cone-like past time (standing for the set of events that the light impulse can reach to the event under observation) opened in the opposite direction of time flow.

Stephen Hawking also mentions the difficulty scientists have in combining quantic mechanics and gravity. By using imaginary numbers (that is those that result in negative numbers when multiplied with themselves), scientists can obtain a Euclidean spacetime where the distinction between time and space disappears completely. Stephen Hawking points out that the utilization of this ‘imaginary time’ and the Euclidean spacetime is a mathematical artifice that can offer answers regarding real spacetime.

Different ideas converge in Stephen Hawking’s effort to find the meaning of time. First, time is finite but with no boundaries. Second, the universe changes from a homogeneous and orderly state to a heterogeneous and disorderly one. Third, the universe expands constantly. Hawking’s remark is that intelligent life can only exist in an universe whose initial state must show order and homogeneity and which can only happen if time is finite but with no boundaries. Under these circumstances, the psychological reality of time where we can remember the past but not the future is intertwined with (1) the cosmological reality of the universe, where constant expansion seems to be essential for the very existence of this universe and (2) the thermodynamic reality of our universe, where entropy increases over time.

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I also want to make a statement of humility. I am a layman and it is quite likely that my posts should include numerous unintentional errors. To those who may justifiably wonder why I am poking my nose into specialists’ business I must confess I can’t help it. Every time I drink my morning tea and find it too hot, I can’t help thinking of this excess heat as originating in the Big Bang, as does the rest of everything there is.

Stephen Hawking himself says that a completely unified theory for everything there is in the universe should be presented in a form allowing everyone to understand how things work, eventually.

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Has anyone heard of the ALL WE ALL (THEM OF) community?

A good friend of mine recently showed me a little pamphlet he got from them and I went to their website (https://allweall.info) which referenced a lot about time as a “micro-limited perspective” within a macrocosmic experience, existence and non-existence as co-dependent and other ideas about looped-time. I recommend giving some of their material a read.
Hope this is helpful to someone.

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Or Time Cube.

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If time doesn’t exist, those of us paid by the hour are cheating. Or being cheated. Or something.

Our cats certainly believe in time. Same time every morning, they howl for food. They need no clocks.

Our garbage pickup crew believes in time. If I don’t drag the can to the road in time, it’ll stink for a week.

Time is what happens when we don’t pay attention. Keyboard away… what, it’s evening already?

If time is only an abstract conjecture, try conceptually regressing to infancy. Take diapers.