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 Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:30 pm
I finally found some time to type this up for all of you.
A few days ago my step-brother posed a question. Does time have a starting point, and an ending point? As I was debating different ideas with my step-brother, and my younger-brother, it became a heated debate.
Why? My younger brother insists that time began with the "Big Bang". He also kept going off topic, talking in circles, and got a "Holier than thou" attitude...but that is besides the point.
He says that time started with the "Big Bang" and will end when the Sun that our world orbits dies out.
My step-brother's counter argument was that as long as you can say "What happened before that" time cannot have a beginning or and ending. It is basic logic...the question "What happened before the hypothetical Big Bang?"...defeates the idea of there being a beginning of time.
My younger brother feels that when the Sun fades, that it will cause time to rip, and become distorted/warped. He thinks the question "What happened before that is "Irrelevent".
I chose to point out that our Sun is a star. Stars all eventually fade. Everyday another star dies out, and yet time has yet to be warped, or twisted. Time hasn't stopped. Further more, The Big Bang Theory deals with the beginning of existance, not the beginning of time. So bringing in the whole "Big Bang Theory" to me is foolish. Time and Existance are two different things. However I wish to present you the whole argument.
Here is my view on it. Time has always existed. Time however, could not always be defined.
We define time by the cycle of the sun. We section our days into two 12 hour halves, dealing with night, and day. Other variables come into play as well, but that is not the subject of this topic. When the sun dies out, we will have to find something else to define time. However, time will not "Stop" and "Cease to exist."
What would have existed before the "Hypothetical Big Bang?". To me there was still time, it just could not have been defined. How do you define it if there are no planets, or visibile things to use as an variable?
To me time is Infinite, there is no beginning, and no end. It has always been there, but ways of defining it, and labeling it, took an the existance of intelligent species, and a variables(IE: The Sun, and the light and day cycle).
So onto the discussion. What do you all think?
Is time Infinite? Or does it have a beginning, and an end? Why, or why not?
Is time relevent to space?
Discuss anything else you might find relevent as well.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:52 pm
Time isn't something that exists. At least, not the way that I think you were arguing. I think that time will end when humanity ends. Because time started when humanity gave the suns revolution a name. Only living beings such as animals and plants have any sense of "time". A star or planet doesn't feel time as we do. Yes, they fade and die but its not like what we think of as dying. So, in answer to your question, time both has a beginning and ending and also it will never cease. The cosmos, in my mind, have always been and will always be. There have been innumerable "Big Bangs" and even after humanity ceases to be, there will continue to be big bangs and other life forms. So time will continue in that sense. But our time will stop. When there aren't any more people to look at a clock and say "Its noon." then it ends.
Understandable?
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:58 pm
PickleBoy Time isn't something that exists. At least, not the way that I think you were arguing. I think that time will end when humanity ends. Because time started when humanity gave the suns revolution a name. Only living beings such as animals and plants have any sense of "time". A star or planet doesn't feel time as we do. Yes, they fade and die but its not like what we think of as dying. So, in answer to your question, time both has a beginning and ending and also it will never cease. The cosmos, in my mind, have always been and will always be. There have been innumerable "Big Bangs" and even after humanity ceases to be, there will continue to be big bangs and other life forms. So time will continue in that sense. But our time will stop. When there aren't any more people to look at a clock and say "Its noon." then it ends. Understandable? Yeah...I understand. Time as is relevent to us will stop when the sun dies out, and we die out. However time, even if it is irrelevent to the universe, will still go on.
I think.....that people should learn to stop calling things time, and just call it existance. Instead of "During the time of the dinosaurs" it should be "During the existance of the dinosaurs" because the use of the word "Time" is misleading.
However "Big Bangs" and Time in general will still go on. Something I couldn't find a way of making understandable to my younger brother. I tried many approaches too.
That brings in the question.....Is time even real? Maybe it is an abstract concept that we thought up. The passing of moments is the way I like to think of time. We see moments pass us by....as we type, as we drink, as we eat, and as we age. We like to label those things, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years. When we are gone, those labels too will be gone. At least our perception of it.
So what is time really?
Perhaps, if you detached time from any physical, or observable thing...is becomes abstract in thought. Then...when it becomes attached to events, to moments fleeting, to organisms, and such, it is no longer "time", but existance.
I don't know...it is a big play on words.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:05 pm
Exactly. Yes, I agree. Time is an abstract thought that humans have. But also, if you're gonna think of it like that then everything has a sense of time. Animals that migrate at certain times of the year have their own sense of time. So, saying you believe there are other sentient beings out there, then time in that abstract way, will never end either.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:10 pm
PickleBoy Exactly. Yes, I agree. Time is an abstract thought that humans have. But also, if you're gonna think of it like that then everything has a sense of time. Animals that migrate at certain times of the year have their own sense of time. So, saying you believe there are other sentient beings out there, then time in that abstract way, will never end either. Our sense of time, and other animals sense of time is time relevent to Earth. If there are other sentient beings out there, than thier sense of time would be what is relevent to where they live, and to themselves. So in that way the concept of labeling passing moments as time will never end.
However....let us say that all of existance ends. Space becomes one big void of nothingness. Does time still exist?
To me it still exists....but you just cannot label it.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:15 pm
Of course it still exists. Just because there aren't any sentient beings to say "Oh, sun go over mountain, ugh." Doesn't mean that everything just stops. When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it not make sound? Of course it makes sound, just because no one was around to hear it doesn't make it less so.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:31 pm
PickleBoy Of course it still exists. Just because there aren't any sentient beings to say "Oh, sun go over mountain, ugh." Doesn't mean that everything just stops. When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it not make sound? Of course it makes sound, just because no one was around to hear it doesn't make it less so. Agreed. Though that's been argued otherwise. I think that this then simply becomes a question of what is time (same with the tree, "what is sound?") which hasn't been answered very well in normal person terms. I suppose there's a lot of work that's been done in physics on this. I will look into that definition.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:46 pm
No, no. I'm not using that as a serious question. It was merely an example. Just because someone isn't there to say that it didn't happen, or that it didn't exist doesn't make it so. It just didn't exist in our minds, our sense of "time" and "sound". And sound is much more palpable than time.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:47 pm
Aethiopica PickleBoy Of course it still exists. Just because there aren't any sentient beings to say "Oh, sun go over mountain, ugh." Doesn't mean that everything just stops. When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it not make sound? Of course it makes sound, just because no one was around to hear it doesn't make it less so. Agreed. Though that's been argued otherwise. I think that this then simply becomes a question of what is time (same with the tree, "what is sound?") which hasn't been answered very well in normal person terms. I suppose there's a lot of work that's been done in physics on this. I will look into that definition. Time...is a unit of measurement in relevence to humans. My question is...what is time in relevence to the Universe?
I agree with PickleBoy. Just because there is nothing there to observe the falling of a tree, does not mean that a tree falling is a silent affair. It might not be silent to the animal nearby....or the animals still on the tree. Just because sentient beings are not around to observe the passing of moments, does not mean moments do not pass.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:50 pm
PickleBoy No, no. I'm not using that as a serious question. It was merely an example. Just because someone isn't there to say that it didn't happen, or that it didn't exist doesn't make it so. It just didn't exist in our minds, our sense of "time" and "sound". And sound is much more palpable than time. Sounds it the result of vibrations and frequency in the air. It is much more recordable, and definable than time.
How can you record time? By using a variable...something to relate it to. Such as.....The sun rising and falling, or the use of a stop watch to clock how long it takes for a person to run a mile. Then again, you really arn't recording time. Just the idea as it is relevent to you, or the Earth.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:59 pm
Yes, as we have agreed upon. I was just explaining to Aethiopica that it was an example, not a serious statement.
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:33 am
I was gunna post a whole bunch of paragraphs on my concepts of time, but if you just read the first two chapters of Ethan Hawking's "Universe In A Nutshell" you'll know about 80% of my conceptions. The rest is just personal theories. Besides, I think it's good for an Atheist to be a little familiar with physics theories.
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:27 pm
Time just refers to the concept of a universal process which allows all physical changes in the present to become events in the past or in short. Time is just simply the measurement of Change within the Cosmos (space, universe, dimesions, etc.) Time is relevant to space Wikipedia In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines three-dimensional space and one-dimensional time into a single construct called the space-time continuum, in which time plays the role of the 4th dimension. According to Euclidean space perception, our universe has three dimensions of space, and one dimension of time. By combining space and time into a single manifold, physicists have significantly simplified a good deal of physical theory, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the universe at both the supergalactic and subatomic levels. In classical mechanics, spacetime is a mere formal option, but in special relativity, space and time are inseparable. The notion of space depends on the observer, as instantaneous events depend on a reference frame. Read about Einstein's General Relativity. I choose poorly with words so I quoted it. To me Time is just measuring how much Change happens and we all know that Change is inevitable.
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:38 pm
I just believe time is a ray. It has a beginning, but no end. It all started too far back for use to remember...
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:15 am
Time is finite. It has been prooven that time and space are not completely independant... the faster you move through space, the slower your timeframe. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time goes. it may not be entirely noticable, but it still happens. Therefore, time and space flow together, not independantly. Before the Big Bang, there was nothingness. Therefore, with nothing, time can't have existed. When the Big Bang began, time was created, since there was space to flow with. It has been said that the Universe will eventuially stop expanding, and will contract until it undoes the Big Bang. At that point, time will cease to be, since there will no longer be space to flow with.
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