Sunday, February 25, 2007

Seriously! What time is it?

Aaaaahhh... But in order to know what time it is one must first know what it is (time that is).
Isn't that enough "is"s for now?

So what IS time??
guess not...

Webster's Definition: A non spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.

Sorry about that. It's not like enough people don't start papers or speeches with the definition of their topic. However, logic dictates that one should start with unambiguiting (making clear) of one's ambiguous terms (and plus who doesn't like using big words).

With that definition proposed, it caused another question to come to mind. If time isn't spacial, does it really exist the way we think it does? Does it have power over us here?

To those of you who don't believe in God, or god, or anything beyond what you can see, or beyond science, I say this: Time doesn't exist, prove me wrong...
And yes I know some of you may think you can, with respect we shall leave it at this for now, and come back to it later.

To those who do believe in God, it is surmisable that such a person could believe in something they cannot see, touch, or truly understand. They would simply chalk it up to faith, at least those who don't care to think about it would (and there is nothing wrong with that). Those that are intrigued by my previous statement that time doesn't exist are probably trying to think of some way, beyond faith, to show that time exists.

One very viable argument for God fearing people, mainly Christian, creationists (apologies to the rest), would be creation itself. God created time at creation and mentions it specifically. God created the heavens and the earth...he said let there be light, and there was...he saw that it was good, and there was light and there was darkness the first day. There it is, case closed, the passage of time. To this I would ask "what is a day defined as?"

If one was to ask a random person on the street to tell them what a day was, I would believe that a common answer would be "24 hours" (or blank stares to such an "odd" question). However, then one could ask the question "what's an hour?" This could continue on in this fashion for all...time.

This is why I would say that a better definition would be to use the creation account: A day is the change from darkness to light and back to darkness. How this helps to answer the question if time exists or not will be seen soon.

Another important concept to Christians would be that God is timeless. There is also mention that God does not change. He doesn't change his mind and keeps his promises. I would combine these two. God is timeless, not because he is outside the fabric of time, but because he is changeless. And time (A.K.A. a day) is defined by a certain amount of spacial change (light to darkness). This is why God would be timeless, because he doesn't change.

Therefore, Time wasn't created at creation but the spacial world was and the changes in this world we perceive as time.

Now back to those who have been itching to prove me wrong, with out God.

I would believe a common argument that may pop into some minds, would be mathematics. Time exists in math. And I would grant you this. However, I normally wouldn't use an unstable idea to explain another one... What do I have against math? Oh, nothing. Its just that it's exactly like time. They could both be defined as an idea used to describe the physical world, at the very least I think we could agree math is this. Math explains everything about the world yet tells us nothing. An example would be ironically similar to the "day" analogie. How long is a meter?? 100 centimeters. How long is a centimeter...?? Again I think you get the picture. Of course time and math can exist in one another, anything can exist in human imagination.

But what about what we see in the world around us? ... I can feel time passing... It took me five secs to ask this question.

In response to this I would bring up the topic of time zones and such concepts, and propose this question. If time is beyond space and is a constant continuum (by nature), how is it that we can exist in different places at different times all at the same time? What I mean to do is to ask a question that a child would ask, how can it be 9:30 here and 10:30 there...right now?

Now we could agree that time is constant and a continuum, and that times zones are a human fabrication to make life easier. However, what then would the value of this constant time be to us. If we were to say that it is 9:30 everywhere, as it should be with time being constant, the world would be thrown into a funk.

A simple example of this would be having two people look at a clock. One person is further away from the clock than the other. In the same way that if a car (car A) travels at the same speed as another car (car B), and car A is farther from point Q. Car B will reach point Q first. Back to the clock. Light travels at a constant speed, and, therefore, the man standing closer to the clock will see the time sooner. Thus he is "traveling" through time "faster". My point is, if time has power over space why is it so bound by spacial concepts?

True we call it the space-time continuum, implying that they are interconnected, but I still see no evidence of time other than the idea of it, which can be manipulated and changed to be whatever we, as humans, want it to be.

What I do see is change in space. We say we get old and things wear down, over time. However, in reality what is happening is quantum mechanics with chemistry. In other words the spacial movement of atoms, all they do is change position. I do realise, however, we could still say that change of the atomic structure happens, over time.

So there is something that has power over this matter, and I would say that for those that don't believe in God this would be "time", and for those that do believe it isn't time but God. (Just to be neutral, I know what I believe)

(If you still want more, Let me get my shovel, and meet me in "It's about time!")






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