Is Time Real or Imaginary?

[camanintx]

Do you believe that time is a real, absolute property of the universe or just a concept to explain how we experience change?

 

[Melissa G]

Time is real, but only man has measured it. We govern our lives around the Solar motion. As the universe is expanding, then time is Linear, for time to reverse, the universe must contract. So, time exists, only it wouldn't exist if we didn't measure it.

Melissa G

 

[BucephalusBB]

I would follow Einstein on that one and say that time is based on the movementchanges between objects.

Einstein and time..

I would also be very happy with a real time though..

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Time itself is artificial. There is change, and aging, but time is used only to measure these changes.
It would be similiar to a yard/meter. They exist inasmuch as we can perceive it, but it only exists because we have a method to measure them.

 

[Francine]

Do you believe that time is a real, absolute property of the universe or just a concept to explain how we experience change?

There is no past which endures except in our records and memories. There is no future. There is only an eternal "now" moment that changes. If you tried to build a time machine, you would be disappointed, because you would not go anywhere.

 

[doppelganger]

If you can relate to time, then it is both real and imaginary.

 

[Valjean]

I agree with both poll options. Time is a real dimension, but our perception of it is an abstraction produced entirely in our own minds.

 

[Willamena]

Do you believe that time is a real, absolute property of the universe or just a concept to explain how we experience change?

I believe that real, absolute properties of the universe are concepts we use to explain how we experience change.

So I guess the answer is "Yes." Does that help?

 

[logician]

There are some cosmologists/physicists that say time doesn't exist, and some that say it does. Real or illusion, take your pick.

 

[sandandfoam]

There are some cosmologists/physicists that say time doesn't exist, and some that say it does. Real or illusion, take your pick.

Both.

 

[Yerda]

If time is imaginary, could it still also be relative for different observers?

 

[Tiberius]

Time is a dimension, so it is as real as height or width.

 

[The Great Architect]

necessary for time to exist as a concept, in order to give humans the illusion of progress and and/or forward motion. I think it is also necessary for us to believe in the 'loss of time' (the fact that it is finite), to motivate and encourage us to finish what we start.

Just a thought.

 

[doppelganger]

If time is imaginary, could it still also be relative for different observers?

Sure. "Time flies when you're having fun."

 

[Willamena]

If time is imaginary, could it still also be relative for different observers?

There can be nothing that is not relative for different observers.

 

[camanintx]

Time is a dimension, so it is as real as height or width.

And yet we cannot measure it or move freely within it. While treating time like a physical dimension makes the math in physics easier, what proof is there that it is more than a mathematical contrivance?

 

[gnomon]

Time is a human construct to measure displacement. Whether that displacement is the position between the spatial and relativistic object or the romantic notion of age I would say time is not real but a human construct of measurement. The yard or meter itself is not real but a notion of how we as human beings ascribe meaning. The distance itself is real but not the notion.

However, for those who include notions as real than yes, time is real as well as all other measurements. However, this might preclude some difficulties in the whole notion of time travel. If time is nothing more than a measure of displacement than even relativistic theory cannot predict a concept as time travel as we are dealing with nothing more than a humanistic concept of measuring distance, weights and other measures.

I think what we ascribe to objects called time would be better explained with a GUT that connects relativistic theory with quantum theory to break the next layer of reality that the current theories of physics cannot reunite.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

There are some cosmologists/physicists that say time doesn't exist, and some that say it does. Real or illusion, take your pick.

Right, time is a myth.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Time is real, but only man has measured it.

Yet my dog knows when it's dinner time.

 

[Melissa G]

So do I, my stomach informs me. I'm sure animals are just as governed by the Earth's orbit around the Sun as we are, as we spin on our tilted axis...me feel dizzy now.