Thoughts on out perception of time

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

After i had taken my sleeping medicine last night i laid down in bed and started to think about time, the forth dimension, and who it relates to the other three dimensions, length, width, and height. After thinking for a while i came to a conclusion.

All of time has already happened, everything past, present, and future.

We assume that the universe has a definite shape. Even if it doesn’t, the universe has to have a defined shape at least. So there is defined length, width, and height. We also known that from the bible that time has a definite beginning and end. Even if you don’t believe in creationism time still has to have a moment that can be defined as a “beginning”.

Because of our limited perception we cannot see all of length, width, and height at the same time. However, all length, width, and height exist simultaneously. We simply can’t see it all at once. So, logically, all of time exists at once. We merely can’t detect it.

If all of time exists at once, does this mean that we have already made every decision we are going to make in our lives? What about free will?

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What the hell kind of sleeping medicine do you take?!

3

Nyquil… why?

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You know, I thought about separating that post into tiny little sentences, which I would then blast to pieces with logic and scientific fact.

But as it is, I have better things to do, and you need to get a less dangerous sleeping medication :smiley:

5

Just because the physical world has dimensions, I’m not sure time has to have actual dimensions too. I’m sure I am totally getting in over my head, but please explain.

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Coldfire: Thank you for being a jerk. If you have something to add to the discussion, say it. Please don’t just come in here and flame me, saying I’m not worth your time. That is just being rude. I encourage you, please, point out what is logically wrong.

beefymeg: The physical world, a.k.a. length, width, and height, are things which we perceive. Different people can perceive these things different ways. Our perception is a function of our brain.

For example, two people are standing next to each other. One of them recently lost an eye. They are looking at an object (lets say a tree) that is 50 meters away. The perception of the distance from themselves to the tree will be, most likely, be different. However, the actual distance to the tree is a constant.

Time shares properties with length, width, and height. All are measurable; they have definite beginnings and ends, we can see the physical effect they have on our perceptions, and our mind can alter them according to what we (or our subconscious) wants to see.

If you don’t believe me here are a few quick examples. Are perception of time goes faster of slower according to what we are thinking. Time flies when your having fun. When i walked into work this morning, i didn’t see these new signs that were put up. They were in my line of site, but my mind chose not to acknowledge their existence. I ignored there length, width, and height.

I’m not sure this answering your question… I think the whole point is that our perception defines our reality. If we can mentally alter our perception of time the same way we can alter our perception of the physical world than time and the physical world must be fundamentally the same.

I’ve got to much free time on my hands…

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Commonsenseman, I haven’t been around here long, either. Think the problem might be your choice of forum - this is the easy listening room.
OK, the way you approach it seems little different to the way we each perceive anything. For example, a pink flower is pink but your perception of pink depends on influences. The meaning and even visual perception varies from person to person.
‘Time’ is, to my mind, considerably more profound. Beyond it’s conventional and simple boundaries i.e. a means to measure for universal convenience, little is understood.
I believe it’s a subject we can’t begin to discuss and, as a species, won’t begin to understand in our lifetimes.
Brave man for raising it as a subject.

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London_Calling; perhaps your right. Maybe i should have posted this on the general questions board. (thank you for using tact when you make a suggestion or comment.)

You make a good point. How much of our perception of time is based upon our visual perception?

Oh well…

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Coldfire is such a meany britches. Go tilt a windmill you goat felcher.

When, oh when will the hostility leave this place?

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CommonCentsMan (or is it scents), this is indeed the wrong forum for a question of this type. But General Questions would also be inappropiate. Great Debates is where this one should have gone.

I’ll give you a quick breakdown on the differences between GQ and GD. GQ is for questions that can actually be answered truthfully or correctly; see Cecil’s columns for a host of splendid GQ type material. GD is the forum for questions or topics with no real answer, hence the term, debate.

Of course, your manner of phrasing and incorrect use of language is going to cause quite a ruckus in that forum. If you think Coldfire jumped your ass, just wait until you post like this in GD. Additionally, the points you seem to accept as facts are going to be challenged also. You’d better have some sources to back them up, or phrase your hypothesis conditionally.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy your stay here.

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UncleBeer: Thanks for politely clearing things up for me. I’ve been reading threads here at the sdmb for about five or six months. Ive noticed that most people here, like yourself and London_Calling, are polite and tactful if they disagree with you or question your logic. There are, however, some more frequent posters here, like Coldfire, who lack that tact (or just don’t care).

Here is an example.

I think it was last week; some inconsiderate troll left this long and rambling message that was barely comprehensible. This message should have been ignored. Instead, it got 16 responses, all telling this guy what a big asshole he was. Troll feeders….

By the way, the source that inspired my above rambling was NyQuil and the voice in my head that wont let me sleep.

I think I took a melotonin that night also.

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Jeez, isn’t anyone going to address the OP?

Not required in my universe’s user’s manual! {grin} There are reasonable cosmological theories in which the universe is finite but has no boundaries. This is somewhat analogous to the two-dimensional surface of a sphere; the area of a sphere is finite but it has no edges.

I could, but won’t, comment.

IIRC (If I Recall Correctly) there are also some cosmological theories in which time is exponentially nonlinear and does not have a beginnning.

Well, I don’t think that follows by any set of logical steps, but I’d be willing to read a proposed logical derivation. I think you may have meant “So, by analogy, all of time exists at once”. If so, then watch it; analogies are tricky. Time is in some ways analogous to spatial dimensions but definitely different from spatial dimensions in some key ways. For example, in one dimension the shortest distance D between point 0 and a point with coordinate x may be written as:

D[sup]2[/sup] = x[sup]2[/sup]

In two dimensions the equation for the shortest distance D between (0,0) and a point with coordinates x and y is:

D[sup]2[/sup] = x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup]

in three dimensions, the equation for the shortest distance D between (0,0,0) and a point with coordinates x and y and z is:

D[sup]2[/sup] = x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup] + z[sup]2[/sup]

See a pattern?

So, in four-dimensional space-time, what’s the equation for the distance from the point (0,0,0,0) and a point with coordinates x and y and z and t?

Wrong!

It’s different.

It’s so different that scientists use a different name, “interval” instead of “distance”. The shortest interval I is (we have to include 'c", the speed of light in vacuum):

(Ic)[sup]2[/sup] = (tc)[sup]2[/sup] - (x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup] + z[sup]2[/sup])

And it doesn’t make any difference whether or not you understand the equation; you can see that time is significantly different from spatial dimensions.

So, I don’t know if all of time exists at once, but IMHO (In My Humble Opinion, usually meant not at all humbly {grin}) you haven’t proved it or made a reasonable case for it. And I have no idea about free will …

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There are very many points to discount in your premise, but I will chose just one:

What does ‘at once’ mean? I interpret it to mean ‘at a given point in time’, an interpretation that seems consistent with the comments you make.

Therefore, it is quite clear that ‘all of time does not exist at once’ (i.e. ‘at a given point in time’), just as all [x,y,z] do not exist in any given [x,y,z] (where x,y,z are locations in 3-dimensional “length, width, height”)

In other words, ‘All time exists at once’ is false, just as ‘all places exist at one place’ is false. In 3-D space, London is not here; Ouagadougou and Tegucigalpa are not here; and the Eta Carina nebula is not here. So why should yesterday, last week and/or the Pleistoscene Era exist now (or co-exist with one another in time)?

It is very difficult to treat time outside of our common experience of it. I strongly urge a study of mathematics. It keeps one honest, by making a firm prediction that can be compared to our imagination. Usually the mathematical prediction turns out to be correct - and can explain where one’s thinking went wrong. In the rarest of circumstances, where the existing mathematics breaks down, the principles of mathematics are the suitable tools for extending the existing conception. Imagination is, and shall always be, an entertaining but unreliable colleague.

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Hello CommonSenseMan; I’m a relative newcomer here as well, but let me help you set your expectations a bit. The replies you just got from KP and JonF are what you should expect from the more reasonable and kind-hearted posters in the GD forum, where this topic would’ve ideally been posted. You should also expect some less considerate and less logically formed replies.:smiley:
The reply you got from Coldfire is typical of a MPSIMS type of response, in that it was HUMOROUS! You will see alot of that here. Grow a skin and get used to it.
If you post in the BBQ Pit (‘the Pit’), have a hanky and your support group ready.

The above comments were meant kindly. Welcome to the posting scene.

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CommonSenseMan: relax. I was merely joking, and believe me, if I had wanted to insult you, everyone would have noticed. I’m surprised that after 6 months of reading this board, you have come to the conclusion that I am a poster who lacks tact. I dare say I am hardly among the most hostile posters on these premises.

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Just thought I’d add my .02 cents on this and get me another post count:)

Good point CommonScenceMan. If time is indeed a dimention, I thinks that it too has its limits. If one were to look at a map, they’d see the whole map at once, right there in front of them. That’s 2 dimentionts. Same thing can be said about 3d objects. Why not time?

Everything that has ever been, always will, and always will be.

Your local Tralfamadorian. :smiley:

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Two points:
Coldfire:
I agree that your response was tame, a little “what were you thinking m’boy” ribbing, by SD standards. However, I am curious why you believe CSM has been around for 6 mos. I thought he’d only been around a few days. Am I missing something?

Like a sock?

JohnF:
Your approach was interesting, but I wanted to clarify the reason for the t (time) term in the interval equation.

The Pythagorean equation x^2 + y^2 = z^2 doesn’t work unless you state x and y in the same units – for obvious reasons! Extended into four dimensions, you’d have to express distance and time in the same units.

Now converting seconds into Meters (an interesting interpretation of “How long is a second?”, don’t you think?) would seem to be a tricky issue, but relativity provides us with exactly one constant across all frames of reference: C, the speed of light. And what are the units of c? Distance per unit time! Perfect!

You can do the 4-D Pythagorean in miles, meters or parsecs, so long as you use the correct value of C (in miles per hour or parsecs per year or whatever) as a conversion. In short time is treated in precisely the same manner as the spatial dimensions. Hence your argument falls down.

Illustration: if x= 15inches and y=8cm, what is z?
x^2 + (ky)^2 = z^2, where k = 2.5 cm/inch (a conversion factor, like c in your example)

If you think about it, it’s easy to see why C is the correct conversion factor, on a logical basis, as well. This can get you out of many ‘faster than speed of light’ arguments, and give you a hint about how Alcubierre warps work.

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Smeagal…
What a perfect name for a troll! Now put on your Precious and make yourself invisible before the flamers toast you.

As I explained, you can see 2000 BC - in 2000 BC!! There is no reason why you should be able to see it from 2000 AD, and no reason to presume it even exists any longer.

Imagine you have a 1 foot straight steel bar. You can hit just about everything with it, except itself. Same with time – you can see all space in one time, but that doesn’t mean you can see all time in a given time

I could explain the relativistic debunking of simultaneity or radiative cones of history (well explored subjects in the early 1900’s), photon interactions but I doubt you’d care.
I’m sorry if you don’t find that as appealing as imagination

19

Shouldn’t this move across time and space to GD?

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KP, here’s the quote from CommonSenseMan that states he has been reading the board for a few months now. It is strange, however, that he includes London_Calling as an example. London is indeed a very tactful poster, but he has only been around for a few weeks. Ah well. Just goes to show I wasn’t making things up :smiley: