Is time REALLY an illusion?

Sorry, I still don’t get it. If our concept of time is an illusion, then I would think every aspect of our existence would be subject to this illusion, including our understanding of science and mathematics. Time is how we intuitively relate to our surroundings. Why would you single out the “model” of evolution as opposed to everything else in our understanding? Do you think that we have somehow leaped out of our own understanding of time in modeling evolution? That our model transcends our own understanding? I don’t see as how that’s the case.

All I was ‘WAGging’ was the idea that given our (human) perception of the world as a whole has evolved to be most useful for survival - and inherrently selective/discriminating in that - that perception of time would equally be subjective, and thus illusory, strictly speaking.

Is the perception of time in mammals for instance correlated at all with heart-rate? Sadly I don’t speak mouse. I’ll shut up now.

Is time = motion? If everything stopped moving, would there be no time?

It passes at lightspeed. That’s the fastest change can move. If a star explodes a thousand light years in the past, no effects of that explosion will reach us until now; there’s your flow.

If one accepts that time is tied to entropy and there was absolutely no motion on any level in the universe then one might argue that time has stopped- except of course for a point of view just outside of our universe.

Folks sitting on a planet just outside of our universe ( s.i.c.) could idly remark, " Hey, look- they stopped moving and have not moved for seventy-four thousand years as we measure a year. Must be boring. Thank og we can still measure our movement and their lack of movement ! "

Time is a perception based on our particular frame of reference, it seems to me.

In the least scientific and most organic sense, time is fluid from moment to moment. We perceive time in many ways, yet how can time alter moment to moment based on our perceptions? Here are two examples.

  1. It appears to me that time has flown. It was only yesterday that my children ( now in late teens ) were toddlers. Oh, where did the time go? I see parents with toddlers in the store and want to tell them to cherish every moment because it flies by. My perception is that time has flown and it was just a short while ago that my kids were 15 years younger than they are now.

  2. For me, and for a lot of other people, living through an accident of some sorts involves serious time distortion. It is quite common for someone to say that things were moving in slow-motion during a car accident or bad fall. Such was the case with me and a bad fall, AND a car accident I had years ago.

I am sure that scientifically one could measure the few seconds it took my car to skid uncontrollably down the B.Q.E. in NYC but to me that measure is of no relevance. I experienced time within my own frame of reference and time slowed down as I skidded. Time was what appeared to be normally-paced when I struck the other car.

In the macroscopic view of things, how can anyone know if we are measuring time accurately since our idea of what a second, nanosecond and attosecond are are solely based upon our point of view?

Cartooniverse

I observe time flow → subset/echo of real time flow → illusion.
I observe gravity → subset/echo of real gravity → illusion.
I observe biological evolution → subset/echo of real biological evolution → illusion.

I define 1+1=2 → 1+1=2 by definition → invariant.
I define a group of integers and a certain operation, call it addition → invariant.
I define a group of objects and a certain set of properties and operations → I observe within that system certain behavior, call it evolution → invariant.

I find out there is no actual time flow and what I’m seeing is not really time flow → my observation of biological evolution can no longer be compared to actual evolution → definition of evolution stays the same, the observation of biological change is no longer similar to it, and we are stuck without natural examples.

In other words, putting one stick next to another stick makes two sticks. If you find out that each stick is actually an infinite number of sticks you didn’t change 1+1=2 (which stays the same), you just changed what mathematical concept is represented by adding them.

What if what I put on the piece of paper is a paperweight?

It ceases to be gravity the minute gravity ceases to be :wink:

Nothing stops moving. Everything in the universe moves at the speed of light through spacetime. Those things that are “not moving”, i.e. not moving through space relative to an observer, move at the speed of light through time. Those things that are moving through space relative to an observer move at slower than the speed of light through time.

I think I disagree. If you develop a set of rules that applies to a particular phenomenon, the rules only apply to that phenomenon as you understand it. The rules do not transcend your understanding. For example, I know that two solid objects cannot pass through each other. I also know that my intuitive understanding of what constitutes a “solid object” is illusory. There is actually more space than matter in a “solid” object. The rules that I understand as to how objects interact only apply at the level that I understand those objects. They do not apply at the quantum level. In other words, they do not transcend.

How can you proclaim a particular system “invariant” without knowing if your intuitive understanding of it matches the fundamental reality of it?