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Originally Posted by Fortean  This is because it's an abstract concept created by any intelligent being that makes use of technology. Nowhere in the natural world is time required. The natural world is no more than a series of events, movement through space and the conversion of energy to matter and matter to energy. We may apply the measurement of time to these things but it is not required.
Where we do measure time we do it with devices that actually just count events for us. The clock counts rotations of a wheel, the digital watch counts vibrations in a crystal and the atomic clock counts vibrations in a caesium atom. All time measurement devices we have count events or movement through space.
Some argue that as you travel closer to the speed of light, time slows down. They attempt to prove this by measuring the difference that occurs in recorded time by two atomic clocks; one moving faster than the other. All they have achieved is to slow down the vibrations of the caesium atom. This could just as easily have been accomplished by cooling the clock. The cooler something is the slower it is at a quantum level. Einstein predicts that as an object gets closer to the speed of light its mass increases. This increase in mass causes a slowing at the quantum level and so appears to effect time. All it really does is effect the properties of the element whose events we are counting.
Those who believe time travel is possible, specifically the ability to travel back in time, miss a very important fact. At any given point in the past all the elements in the universe were in a particular state and in a particular place. This includes the matter and energy that the time traveller is made of. If all these elements were returned to their original location for a particular time in the past then this would also include the components that make up the traveller. The traveller could not possibly know that they had travelled under these circumstances. How much energy would be required to put everything in the universe back to where it was? And where would this energy come from? The fuel you needed to create the energy would itself have to be returned to its original location in space.
So there it is. Time is an abstract system of measurement. It is required to make use of technology but not to grow food or reproduce. It may take 9 months to create a child but what it really takes is a vast series of events and conversions of matter to energy and energy to matter. Once theses events have completed the child is born. It will still be born even if you do not know what time is. |
I am not debating motion. The essence of what I meant was time does exist, and it's relative value is determinate on the level of intelligence of the being doing the perceiving.
Example: to the common garden worm, there is only "the present". To more complex and aware creatures, cats, dogs, deer, they have an awareness of the "past", and are mostly concerned with the "present". Man is aware of all three forms of time and is therefore not only influenced by the past , but at times ,apprehensive of the future, while the present is affected by both the past and future.
Although you can not see time,it can be measured. You can see it's effects on people. Look at the scurry of "rush hour".
Time like gravity, can not be seen, but it's effects can.