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Cogito ergo sum

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Is time physical?

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  • Is time physical?

    Time is not something we can taste, touch or feel. You can't put it under a microscope, nor is it made of particles. Yet the physical world can influence time, example:

    The logic behind gravitational time dilation is fairly simple: Objects with a lot of mass create a strong gravitational field. This gravitational field noticeably warps the fabric of spacetime around these objects, producing what we know as gravity. When a stream of light particles passes by an object with sufficient gravity, the stream of photons traveling at the speed of light would appear to bend.

    What's even more interesting is that mass can warp the very fabric of time itself, causing it to move slower or faster depending on how massive the object is...
    How can the physical influence the non-physical?
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

  • #2
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Time is not something we can taste, touch or feel. You can't put it under a microscope, nor is it made of particles. Yet the physical world can influence time, example:

    How can the physical influence the non-physical?
    The fact that the physical world can influence time indicates that time itself is physical.

    Einstein’s general theory of relativity established time as a physical thing: it is part of space-time, the gravitational field produced by massive objects. The presence of mass warps space-time, with the result that time passes more slowly close to a massive body such as Earth.

    source

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    • #3
      Originally posted by seer View Post
      How can the physical influence the non-physical?
      How Solenoids Work

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Stoic View Post

        The fact that the physical world can influence time indicates that time itself is physical.

        Einstein’s general theory of relativity established time as a physical thing: it is part of space-time, the gravitational field produced by massive objects. The presence of mass warps space-time, with the result that time passes more slowly close to a massive body such as Earth.

        source
        Doesn't Einstein say that time is an illusion? And if time is physical what is it made of?
        Last edited by seer; 08-03-2022, 12:44 PM.
        Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by seer View Post
          Doesn't Einstein say that time is an illusion?
          The closest quote I can find to that is:

          "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

          I think this view would more accurately be translated as "the flow of time is an illusion". (see eternalism)

          And if time is physical what is it made of?
          What is space made of? What is gravity made of? What are mass and electric charge made of?

          To answer your question, I don't know that time is "made of" anything. It seems to be pretty fundamental.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Stoic View Post
            The closest quote I can find to that is:

            What is space made of? What is gravity made of? What are mass and electric charge made of?

            To answer your question, I don't know that time is "made of" anything. It seems to be pretty fundamental.
            We know what causes an electric charge, not so with time. Though fundamental it doesn't seem to be physical. No actual physical properties we can point to.

            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by seer View Post
              We know what causes an electric charge, not so with time.
              Really? What causes an electron to have a negative charge?

              Though fundamental it doesn't seem to be physical. No actual physical properties we can point to.
              If we can measure it, it would seem to be physical.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Stoic View Post
                Really? What causes an electron to have a negative charge?
                God?


                If we can measure it, it would seem to be physical.

                If the flow of time is an illusion what are we measuring?
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by seer View Post
                  God?
                  But you said, "We know what causes an electric charge, not so with time."

                  Did you want to take that back?

                  If the flow of time is an illusion what are we measuring?
                  We measure the time between events, just as we measure the distance between places.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Stoic View Post
                    But you said, "We know what causes an electric charge, not so with time."
                    Did you want to take that back?

                    Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be positive or negative (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively). Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other.

                    So an electrical charge is a physical property...


                    We measure the time between events, just as we measure the distance between places.
                    But if time is not flowing then we are not measuring anything. What you are measuring between events is an illusion.
                    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Time is made out of bacon.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by seer View Post
                        Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be positive or negative (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively). Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other.

                        So an electrical charge is a physical property...
                        Electrical charge is a physical property. So is time.

                        Both are physical quantities.

                        "In physics, a physical quantity is any physical property that can be quantified, that is, be measured using numbers. Examples of physical quantities are mass, amount of substance, length, time, temperature, electric current, light intensity, force, velocity, density, and many others."

                        But if time is not flowing then we are not measuring anything. What you are measuring between events is an illusion.
                        The time between events can be measured, whether time is flowing or not.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Stoic View Post
                          The time between events can be measured, whether time is flowing or not.
                          That makes no sense, that measurement would be an illusion if time does not flow. The measurement would require an actual past present and future, but if time is static those categories don't exist.

                          Both are physical quantities.
                          Err no, an electrical charge would exist even if there were no rational minds in the universe. How could time exist without rational minds?

                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Einstein showed that Time and Space are properties of the same thing: Space-Time. It is what we exist in. Not sure if you can really call it "physical" because it is not made up of anything. It exists even in an absolute vacuum. It's the "fabric" of our universe. If you change one property the other changes too. If you speed up an object, time slows down for that object and space contracts for it. At least from it's point of view. Something traveling close to the speed of light would see everything around it speed up because time for it would slow down. And space in front of it would contract. So if it were a spaceship traveling to another star 10 light years away, and it were going at 99% of the speed of light, to us it would take around 10 years to get there, but for the people on the spaceship, it might only take 10 minutes. And instead of measuring the distance as 10 light years, it would only measure 10 light minutes.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              OK this is a very interesting article that shows that we all are moving through space-time at the speed of light. The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time, and vice versa. But it always adds up to the speed of light in Space-time. If you are sitting at rest in relation to space, you are moving through time at the maximum rate. If you were moving through space at the maximum rate (e.g. a photon) then you are moving through time at zero rate.


                              “You can’t go faster than the speed of light, because you can’t go slower than the speed of light. You are always going the speed of light through spacetime. If you use some of your speed to go through space then there is less speed through time.”
                              https://medium.com/predict/we-all-tr...t-d60cb389dfc2



                              And gravity is a bending of space-time. In a black hole the gravitational shear (the difference in gravity from one point to another) is near infinite, which means anything caught in that gravity would be essentially moving through space at the maximum rate, which would cause time to slow down or even stop as someone crossed the event horizon. That's now an object can affect time.
                              Last edited by Sparko; 08-04-2022, 09:08 AM.

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