What is time ?

[Apple Sky]

Einstein said 'that time is natures way of preventing everything from happening at once'.

Here is another perplexing attribute about time, when we sleep time is irrelevant in our dreams, you can nod off for five minutes and yet dream about something fantastic that seems to be forever and then we wake look at the clock and find only five minutes has passed, and yet we were immersed in this thing called time.

Is time just in our brains & what we've been conditioned to, we can't see,touch,smell or hear time

We say things like;

Do you have the time
I don't have time
Time for
Time is short
It's time we
Time is money

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Time is what a clock measures.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Time is our perception of increasing entropy in our local space.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I don't know who it was but I think someone once said something along the lines of "Everybody knows what time is until they have to explain it".

 

[AV1611VET]

Time is the quotient that arises when distance is divided by velocity.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Time is the quotient that arises when distance is divided by velocity.

what if distance or velocity or both is 0? Does time stop in that instance?

 

[AV1611VET]

what if distance or velocity or both is 0? Does time stop in that instance?

Good question.

I'd say no; it's quotient just goes to 0 as well.

 

[partinobodycular]

Time is our perception of increasing entropy in our local space.

I'm not sold on that particular definition of time. It's a bit like saying that time is the measure of the position of the sun in the sky. They're both a means by which to measure time, but I'm not convinced that either of them serve as the source of 'time' itself.

If someone says that "entropy increases over time" that would seem to suggest that it's the passage of time that causes entropy to increase, not that the increase in entropy causes time to pass. There definitely seems to be a correlation between the two, but then again wouldn't a decrease in entropy also serve as a measure of time?

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Anyone read The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness?

https://grattoncourses.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/husserl-internal-time-consciousness-new-one-but-i-think-older-translation.pdf

 

[dlamberth]

Other than the conscious awareness of humans need to measure stuff, I have no idea what time is.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

I'm not sold on that particular definition of time. It's a bit like saying that time is the measure of the position of the sun in the sky. They're both a means by which to measure time, but I'm not convinced that either of them serve as the source of 'time' itself.

If someone says that "entropy increases over time" that would seem to suggest that it's the passage of time that causes entropy to increase, not that the increase in entropy causes time to pass. There definitely seems to be a correlation between the two, but then again wouldn't a decrease in entropy also serve as a measure of time?

I think it's the other way around. The increase in entropy causes the "passage of time." I think it's why at the quantum level time doesn't seem to exist (i.e. particle interactions look the same whether you observe them "forward" or "backward"; virtual particles popping in and out of existence spontaneously; anti-matter and matter particles appearing and annihilating each other spontaneously, etc.) because you're dealing with such localized space that entropy is basically 0.

 

[partinobodycular]

The increase in entropy causes the "passage of time." I think it's why at the quantum level time doesn't seem to exist (i.e. particle interactions look the same whether you observe them "forward" or "backward"; virtual particles popping in and out of existence spontaneously; anti-matter and matter particles appearing and annihilating each other spontaneously, etc.) because you're dealing with such localized space that entropy is basically 0.

I would posit that it's entanglement that imposes order on those random quantum fluctuations, and it's that order that leads to the perception of time, because the quantum field's natural tendency is toward disorder/randomness. Hence order, when it arises has a natural tendency to return to disorder again. Which of course we experience as entropy. But it's incorrect to think of that entropy as the 'cause' of time... it's just an indication of the field's natural regression to disorder again. So time is actually a measure of those quantum fluctuations. Fluctuations which normally have no discernible direction, and it's only when order arises that we perceive the field's regression to disorder... and we call it time.

Anyway, that's me wandering down the rabbit hole again. Never underestimate the mind's capacity to make up nonsense.

 

[durangodawood]

Time is our perception of increasing entropy in our local space.

Thats not satisfying to me because your answer is in terms of time - even though you didnt say it out loud.

"Increasing" has the idea of time built into it. So it sounds like youre defining time in terms of time.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Thats not satisfying to me because your answer is in terms of time - even though you didnt say it out loud.

"Increasing" has the idea of time built into it. So it sounds like youre defining time in terms of time.

I actually thought about that too....