Human beings and time

[Beaudreaux]

Check out a little theory called "Special Relativity." Neat results in that regard. Under certain time-and-space compression phenomena, two observers can measure the same objects as different lengths and both be correct. For example, if a ten-foot long car passes by me at 0.43 times the speed of light, I'd measure it as only nine feet long. Someone IN the car would still measure it as ten feet long, and we'd both be right.

Oh...I didn't know that's what you were talking about. I thought you meant that if people traveling at relatively the same speed saw something and one of them had a subjective experience that differed from reality that that experience was just as valid as reality. I didn't realize you were referring to SR.

 

[Engyo]

Do you know what the term is for an experiential duration of time from a subjective viewpoint that is different from the time actually measured? "Incorrect".

From the objective standpoint, I agree. From the subjective standpoint, something takes as long as YOU (the subject) think or feel it takes. Remember when you were 5 years old, and a year seemed to last forever? At that time it was 20% of your entire life experience. How fast does a year seem to go by today? The Earth hasn't changed its orbit enough between then and now to account for the difference I feel. How does it feel to you?

But let's roll with the concept anyway. Are there other measurable phenomena that you feel may have different subjective measures that are "as valid"? How about length? If you think a mile is an inch, are you correct? How about the efficacy of penicillin to kill bacteria? If you think it doesn't work, is that valid too? How about measured rainfall? If you think a desert is really a lake, is your position valid?

My daughter, who hates needles, always says that the doctor injected her using a horse or an elephant needle. It didn't seem any bigger than any other needle to me, but it sure does to her.

Weather is another instance that comes to mind. Living in Texas, what seems warm and a bit muggy to me seems like the foyer of the Christian hell to someone from a cold and dry climate. Some of my friends who grew up here can't even imagine living in -20 degrees F and blowing snow for weeks as I did in Michigan growing up.

It's never happened to me, but I'm told that a gun barrel looks huge when it's pointed at you; no matter whether you know its exact measurement or not.

The exact measurements are objectively valid. The way our minds interpret them can vary quit a bit.

 

[Beaudreaux]

From the objective standpoint, I agree. From the subjective standpoint, something takes as long as YOU (the subject) think or feel it takes. Remember when you were 5 years old, and a year seemed to last forever? At that time it was 20% of your entire life experience. How fast does a year seem to go by today? The Earth hasn't changed its orbit enough between then and now to account for the difference I feel. How does it feel to you?
My daughter, who hates needles, always says that the doctor injected her using a horse or an elephant needle. It didn't seem any bigger than any other needle to me, but it sure does to her.

Weather is another instance that comes to mind. Living in Texas, what seems warm and a bit muggy to me seems like the foyer of the Christian hell to someone from a cold and dry climate. Some of my friends who grew up here can't even imagine living in -20 degrees F and blowing snow for weeks as I did in Michigan growing up.

It's never happened to me, but I'm told that a gun barrel looks huge when it's pointed at you; no matter whether you know its exact measurement or not.

The exact measurements are objectively valid. The way our minds interpret them can vary quit a bit.

So, while things may seem like they take a long time, objective measurements of time are valid. Thank you. That is the point I was trying to make to Thief.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Ok, since we agree that time does exist (because it is observable and objectively measurable), can we also agree that we humans are limited by it as suggested in the OP?

 

[Engyo]

Ok, since we agree that time does exist (because it is observable and objectively measurable), can we also agree that we humans are limited by it as suggested in the OP?

From what we can percieve, of course. I've often wondered whether the *real universe* (as opposed to what we can understand through the filter of our brains) is constrained that way, though.

 

[EverChanging]

It seems to me that time is a construct we use to measure change. Einstein believed it was an illusion. I don't know exactly what I think, but if I went with my gut, I think it probably is just an illusion. Isn't that why we say there was no time "before" (I'm limited by language here) the Big Bang? Because there was no change?

 

[wmjbyatt]

Time is NOT objectively measurable--that's part of the result of SR. Time only has meaning in a relativistic, positioned, SUBJECTIVE sense. Checking a timepiece on one's own wrist is not objective at all. The rate of time's motion tends to be relatively constant throughout a spatial region, but it by no means has to be, and generally ISN'T exactly constant. The experiment with the two atomic clocks and the airplane demonstrate this rather admirably.

Einstein himself said that SR eradicates an objective notion of time. Just as there is no absolute spatial positioning, and things are only spatially positioned in relation to each other, there is no absolute temporal positioning.

And this is just the physics of the question. I've already given my metaphysical view.

 

[PolyHedral]

No, time is objectively measurable. SR merely posits that these objective measures will not match up if the clocks are moving relative to one another. Time will always pass for you at 1 second per second, though it may pass for me watching you at a different rate.

(This is without going into light-cones, which objectively define "before" and "after".)

 

[Willamena]

So, while things may seem like they take a long time, objective measurements of time are valid.

Measurements of time that you take are "objective" because you validate them.

 

[wmjbyatt]

No, time is objectively measurable. SR merely posits that these objective measures will not match up if the clocks are moving relative to one another. Time will always pass for you at 1 second per second, though it may pass for me watching you at a different rate.

[accent homeland="spain"]I do not think that word means what you think it means.[/accent]

 

[Beaudreaux]

It seems to me that time is a construct we use to measure change. Einstein believed it was an illusion. I don't know exactly what I think, but if I went with my gut, I think it probably is just an illusion. Isn't that why we say there was no time "before" (I'm limited by language here) the Big Bang? Because there was no change?

Interesting... Did you come to this conclusion recently or have you been a student of Einstein for a while?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Time is an illusion the same way everything else can be perceived to be an illusion.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Time is NOT objectively measurable--that's part of the result of SR. Time only has meaning in a relativistic, positioned, SUBJECTIVE sense. Checking a timepiece on one's own wrist is not objective at all. The rate of time's motion tends to be relatively constant throughout a spatial region, but it by no means has to be, and generally ISN'T exactly constant. The experiment with the two atomic clocks and the airplane demonstrate this rather admirably.

Einstein himself said that SR eradicates an objective notion of time. Just as there is no absolute spatial positioning, and things are only spatially positioned in relation to each other, there is no absolute temporal positioning.

And this is just the physics of the question. I've already given my metaphysical view.

Are you saying that the experiment with the two atomic clocks will come out the same way every time under identical circumstances? I find that hard to believe...

 

[PolyHedral]

[accent homeland="spain"]I do not think that word means what you think it means.[/accent]

Proper tag is [/InigoMontoya]

And your somewhat right I'm straining "objective" here. All observers will get physically correct and meaningful answers if they work out how fast time flows for you. The fact that the numeric values aren't the same isn't here or there.

Are you saying that the experiment with the two atomic clocks will come out the same way every time under identical circumstances? I find that hard to believe...

Details? I haven't heard an experiment involving atomic clocks that should turn out different.

 

[wmjbyatt]

Details? I haven't heard an experiment involving atomic clocks that should turn out different.

To test special relativity, two atomic clocks were synched to each other on earth. Then they stuck one in an airplane and flew it around the planet real fast.When it got back, the two clocks showed different times, with precisely the discrepancy predicted by SR.

 

[Engyo]

Proper tag is [/InigoMontoya]

That would work.

 

[Beaudreaux]

To test special relativity, two atomic clocks were synched to each other on earth. Then they stuck one in an airplane and flew it around the planet real fast.When it got back, the two clocks showed different times, with precisely the discrepancy predicted by SR.

So....time is not only observable, it behaves "precicely" the same way under the same conditions? Ok, if you say so...

It occurs to me that's pretty consistent for an illusion.

 

[EverChanging]

Interesting... Did you come to this conclusion recently or have you been a student of Einstein for a while?

It is something I've thought about for a long time, particularly when I was reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Again, I'm no physicist, but this is simply my gut feeling. As for Einstein, I just know that he expressed the opinion that time is an illusion, which is no secret. For instance:

[FONT=Garamond, Book Antiqua, Footlight MT Light, Times New Roman]Surprising as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes:[/FONT]
Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

And...

Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

[FONT=Garamond, Book Antiqua, Footlight MT Light, Times New Roman]Maybe he's wrong, but I wouldn't argue with him about it.

Albert Einstein and the Fabric of Time
[/FONT]

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

As for Einstein, I just know that he expressed the opinion that time is an illusion,

Clearly Einstein is very naive and was never stuck in traffic on a California freeway.

 

[EverChanging]

Clearly Einstein is very naive and was never stuck in traffic on a California freeway.

Well, he never said the illusion wasn't convincing.