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Time is Timeless

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ElvenKing

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I reject this notion entirely. Existence is the basis needed to apply properties in the first place; it cannot itself be described as a property.



The concepts both exist, but you'll find that in the case of the unicorn, you are giving attributes solely to the concept. If I may explain:

Conceptual Elephant
Attributes:
–Is gray
–Weighs about a ton
–Has a trunk

Conceptual Unicorn
Attributes:
–White
–Has a horn
–Farts rainbows

Actual Elephant
Attributes:
–Is gray
–Weighs about a ton
–Has a trunk

Actual Unicorn
/

There is no actual unicorn in the first place; as such, it cannot have attributes at all – let alone "exists". Existence simply is not an attribute.



The concept of time has properties. We cannot establish, however, that actual time even exists.
That is nonsense. Existence itself is property. That is why one can refer to can refer to an "actual unicorn" and say it is non-existent. That a unicorn lacks the property of existence in the physical world.

There is actually no difference between existence in the two examples. The attributes of the unicorn are coherent, meaningful concepts, which if they did exist, would be exactly as proposed int the concept. A presence of the property of existence, specifically, whether or not the conceptualised creature exists in the physical world, is the difference between the two situations.

Since "actual time" is made up of those properties of the concept of time, there is no difference between the concept of "time" and its properties. If the properties of the concept of time are so, then so is actual time.

But I'm only saying existence is only a property of concepts. So in the case of concepts, existence is a property of those concepts that actually do exist. I'm not saying existence is a property of existing things (even though it is, but it is a redundant attribute for obvious reasons).
That doesn't actually work because any truth that is perceived, we have a concept of it, which in any case refers to its precise nature. Existence is a property of concepts(we conceptualise that something exists in a particular way), but concepts are also a product of existence, namely when a concept is accurate, it reflects the truth of what is. If existence of something were merely a matter of holding the concept of it, it would produce a situation where anything you conceived would be considered to exist(as anything conceived would exist) and there could be nothing existing which you had not conceived(as existence does not exist as a property outside of what is conceived).

Existence being the property of existing things is actually the point. Ignoring that is why Budget Player Cadet has made an error. It isn't a redundant attribute, but rather, for the purposes of this discussion, the most important one there is.
 

Holder of the Heel

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That would mean nonexistent things have the property of nonexistence? Nothingness can't have properties, then it would be something.
 

jaswa

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That would mean nonexistent things have the property of nonexistence? Nothingness can't have properties, then it would be something.
No, you're confusing non-existent things with things not physical actualized in the real world and composed of matter.

If I imagine a unicorn, it has properties: white, horse-like, horn, non-existent in reality. This doesn't equate to 'nothingness'.
 

ElvenKing

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That would mean nonexistent things have the property of nonexistence? Nothingness can't have properties, then it would be something.
Non-existence is a property. Nothingness is a property.

Nothing is not actually an absence of everything. It is an absence of a particular phenomena. That is how we can say it is TRUE that there is nothing. Why we can say that nothing exists.

An absence of "everything" is logically incoherent because then nothing would have to be non-existent, then that non-existence would have to be non-existent, and so on and on forever.
 

Dre89

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Yeah but something can't have the property of nothingness, because if there is something that can have properties then it isn't nothingness.

A better way to put it is to say nothingness has the property of having no other properties by definition.

Time exists in the sense that it has properties. To say it doesn't is to equate it with nothingness, but then we would be saying that time is the absence of existence, which it isn't.

In fact, time, regardless of what your conception of it is, is really only validated when other things exist. If nothing existed, and here was nothing to have motion, time would be a completely redundant concept.
 

Holder of the Heel

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I still don't see how nothingness/non-existence is a property, it is clearly to me the absence of any properties. When there are no properties, it does not exist. To say the lack of properties is a property would be strange indeed.

And if existence was a property, then it seems confusing to say a certain property exists, because then I'd have to ask myself if that existing property has the existence property, and so on. To treat it differently shows that it isn't like any property because it isn't a property.
 

ElvenKing

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Yeah but something can't have the property of nothingness, because if there is something that can have properties then it isn't nothingness.

A better way to put it is to say nothingness has the property of having no other properties by definition.


In fact, time, regardless of what your conception of it is, is really only validated when other things exist. If nothing existed, and here was nothing to have motion, time would be a completely redundant concept.
That is actually a misleading statement because of how any meaningful usage of the word nothing refers to that a particular concept is absence. Nothing is always marked in relation to what does not exist, as otherwise it has no meaning. To simply say "nothing" tells us nothing because it hasn't told us what concept is not reflected in reality. It is likes saying: "Truth," "Existence," or "Morally correct." Without identifying what the term refers to, the idea is incomplete is not meaningful because we have no ides where to find it. "Nothing" and "existence" usually avoid this problem by people considering that the word on its own means "anything that is true," but that also hides that when they refer to nothing, that they are actually expressing that there is an absence of anything that we can conceive as a concept in our minds, leading to situations where people think that nothing is actually having an absence of properties while understanding that it is. This complete "nothing" is having the property that all other properties(i.e. effectively an infinite number of concepts) are absent, but to simply define it has such misses what this actually means: that something is actually being given the quality of nothingness, namely, the concept that does not exist as a property. Something being said to possess nothing is actually what occurs. The concept(s) being stated to not exist are being treated as possibly existing properties, then, being rejected to exist. To understand "nothing" correctly, one must treat any given concept as possibly existing, so it can then be marked as not actually existing.

Not quite, it depends which property of time is being spoken of. If you are speaking time in the sense that objects move through space and end up at different points, then yes. If, however, you are speaking of the experience of the passage of time, that might not actually be true. To use an example, if almost everything were suddenly to disappear, with you remaining behind in a black void with no moving objects, would you cease to experience time passing? Or would, even though it doesn't really say anything of meaning now, would you experience that was passing? You stuck in an empty void with nothing to do an no-one to interact with.


I still don't see how nothingness/non-existence is a property, it is clearly to me the absence of any properties. When there are no properties, it does not exist. To say the lack of properties is a property would be strange indeed.

And if existence was a property, then it seems confusing to say a certain property exists, because then I'd have to ask myself if that existing property has the existence property, and so on. To treat it differently shows that it isn't like any property because it isn't a property.
Because "nothing" is a quality that reality and a concepts have.-i.e. it is true those things exist with the quality of non-existence. You cannot justify the presence of nothing without it. This is simply seen in the challenge: "How do you know there is nothing?" If you cannot give the justification "it is true that there is nothing," then you have no argument. It cannot be said that there is a state of nothing because it hasn't been logically justified.

Only because you are not identifying the nature of what "existence" means correctly. "Existence" on its own doesn't actually tell us anything. It simply says: "There is something in reality," which tells us precisely nothing of meaning. Sure it has said something is true in reality, but what is this something? Is it a mouse? Is it a house? Is it a carrot palace? We don't know. "Existence" on its own is the quality of existing on reality that has been separated from the particular properties that do exist in reality. A realisation that, for example, the object the properties of table and the object the properties of a bowl share a property: that they both exist in reality. That they both belong to the category of what exists in reality(as opposed to the category of what does not exist in reality).

It isn't like other properties because it is the base unit of reality. It is Truth. Whenever something is true, it exists. It is still a property though. Some concepts have the quality of existing. Other concepts do not have the quality of existing.
 

MuraRengan

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I'm kinda late to this party but I'll throw in something anyway.

I've never agreed with the idea that time does not exist. In fact, I find it rather ludicrous to suggest that time functions any differently than how we experience it. The properties of our realm of existence are time and space. Those two properties alone make everything in this universe possible. Every single thing that we learn about the universe and its origins rely heavily on the idea that time moves at a constant forward flow, and that events in space abide by a rule of cause and effect. If we question the forward flow of time, every single thing we know to be true, every scientific theory about the origins of whatever, even that fact that this post is nearly a month late cannot be ascertained as true. If we do not think of time as increments of now and then, then we have no basis for claiming to understand anything about the universe at all. This line of thought is entirely impractical. The human mind is not the only thing that interprets time as a forward progression, because it is evident that time has been progressing forward long before there was ever a mind to conceive of it. If there was no time, no increment of now and then in which spatial-events took place, then there would be no universe because no events could ever happen.

As for time being timeless, my agreement depends on the qualities inherent in the idea of time's timelessness. While I believe that timelessness can be used to describe time, I do not believe that this means that time was not brought into existence. In a reality where time is timeless and not created, then time would be traceable infinitely backwards. This reality cannot be true. If we could trace time infinitely backward, then there would be no way to make sense of the forward progression of time. I made this same argument in another thread: if there was an infinite amount of time that needed to be passed in the past in order to reach any point in time, then no point in time would ever be reached. Because of this, I believe that time has a definite beginning.
 

Holder of the Heel

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No one is saying it is different than how we experience it. In fact, saying it is as we experience it is saying that it doesn't exist, because we don't really experience it. Things just move. That's it. We are not saying the human mind has anything to do with it, that would be making it out to be more than nothing. Things move without a mind to be aware of it.

As for your line saying two properties alone make everything in this universe possible... wut?
 

MuraRengan

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No one is saying it is different than how we experience it. In fact, saying it is as we experience it is saying that it doesn't exist, because we don't really experience it. Things just move. That's it. We are not saying the human mind has anything to do with it, that would be making it out to be more than nothing. Things move without a mind to be aware of it.
A couple people earlier said that time was a product of the human mind. Others were talking about relativity. I was trying to address everything that has been said already.

I don't agree with what you said about people not experiencing time, but as long as we're all in agreement that time is a forward flow of events then I'm ok.

As for your line saying two properties alone make everything in this universe possible... wut?
This seems very self evident. Time and space are what allow everything that exists to exist. If there was no time, then no events in the universe would ever happen. If there was no space, then no objects in the universe could exist. There are no more properties in the universe more fundamental than those two. Care to explain what your problem with this idea is?
 

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This seems very self evident. Time and space are what allow everything that exists to exist. If there was no time, then no events in the universe would ever happen. If there was no space, then no objects in the universe could exist. There are no more properties in the universe more fundamental than those two. Care to explain what your problem with this idea is?
Wait, my apologies for that part, I was reading it wrong. :laugh: Carry on.
 

Dre89

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This seems very self evident. Time and space are what allow everything that exists to exist. If there was no time, then no events in the universe would ever happen. If there was no space, then no objects in the universe could exist. There are no more properties in the universe more fundamental than those two. Care to explain what your problem with this idea is?[/QUOTE]

So would you say that the image of an apple that I have in my head exists somewhere in space?

The chemicals that created the mental image exist in space, but what about the actual image?
 

GwJ

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I think you have it backwards Dre.

It's not "if there was no time, then no events would happen." I think it should read:

"If no events in the universe happened, there would be no time."

Likewise with the latter statement about space:

"If no objects in the universe existed, there would be no space."
 

Dre89

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I think you have it backwards Dre.

It's not "if there was no time, then no events would happen." I think it should read:

"If no events in the universe happened, there would be no time."

Likewise with the latter statement about space:

"If no objects in the universe existed, there would be no space."
What you're referring to is actually a failed quote attempt of MuraRengan's post, not my own input.
 

MuraRengan

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This seems very self evident. Time and space are what allow everything that exists to exist. If there was no time, then no events in the universe would ever happen. If there was no space, then no objects in the universe could exist. There are no more properties in the universe more fundamental than those two. Care to explain what your problem with this idea is?
So would you say that the image of an apple that I have in my head exists somewhere in space?

The chemicals that created the mental image exist in space, but what about the actual image?[/QUOTE]

I would not say that the actual image exists in space. The image is a translation of the chemicals in the brain, it is merely how we experience those chemicals. It's the same as speaking. Words don't exist in space, but the way in which we experience physical waves of sound gives us the experience of talking.

I think you have it backwards Dre.

It's not "if there was no time, then no events would happen." I think it should read:

"If no events in the universe happened, there would be no time."

Likewise with the latter statement about space:

"If no objects in the universe existed, there would be no space."
I don't see how this can be true in either case.

On Time: In order for an event to happen, criteria must be met to cause it. In order for criteria to be met, more events must happen. Thus we have an infinite amount of sub-events that lead to a single event, and with the passage of each event and sub-event there is a difference in time between them. Thus time is already present in the making of each event that occurs.

As an added point to the time argument, it is evident that time passes even when events don't occur. At this very moment in time, in some place out in space there is a measurement of space in which no matter exists, meaning no events are taking place. However, even without matter occupying those spaces, the difference between now and then both here, me sitting at my computer, and there, in space, is apparent and measurable.

On space: In order for an object to move in space, there must be occupyable space available before-hand in order for it to move. This is why we can move from place to place as long as we don't try to occupy space that is already taken by another object. This is especially true in space (the galaxy) where there are miles and miles of nothingness. If you are suggesting that this nothingness is a lack of space, then how do you explain the fact that it is occupyable?

I don't mean to assert any of this as fact, this is just the logic I used to reach my conclusion.
 

Claire Diviner

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Seeing as it's well past midnight, and I haven't added anything to a debate in a while, I'll give my two cents and a danish as best I can:

Consider clocks that keep track of time on Earth. Now consider that same brand and model of clock on - say - a space shuttle. Studies have shown that when astronauts return to Earth from their space voyage, the time on their clock reads differently than the one shown on Earth; the one on Earth will be ahead in time. Does that not prove that time isn't timeless, and that it is an ongoing phenomena that cannot be stopped, but - as shown in said studies - merely manipulated and slowed down? As it stands, it seems time will keep moving on, even if existence were to cease at the end of it all (The Big Rip theory). The only real way to make it truly "timeless" is to stop time itself, but as it currently stands, that appears to be an impossibility.
 

MuraRengan

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This proves that devices meant to track time can be thrown off by the movement of space. I hate that scientists use these experiments to claim that time can be slowed, or that time is relative, because this is ONLY true of devices that try to track time. I would argue that time flows at an even pace, and that physical materials are simply incapable of keeping track of it perfectly.

I don't believe that time itself can be manipulated and slowed down. This is only true of the flawed experience of time that humans percieve because of our methods of tracking it. When astronauts go into space and come back slightly younger, it's not because they slowed down time itself, it's because their own experiential time, determined by the way in which their matter interacts with space, was affected by movement and speed.

Also, Sol, I think you're missing the point of the OP. OP is saying that there was never a time before time, not that there is a lack of time within time.
 

Claire Diviner

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Well, if that's the case, then the biggest mystery would be what started the process of time and how? While yes, some can say the Big Bang was the start of it, it still wouldn't explain what caused it. And for The Big Bang to even start, there should have been a point in time where a catalyst was used arbitrarily by nature (if nature existing in a universe-less paradigm still counts) to even begin said phenomena. Perhaps then maybe time did exist before existence, but we're just unable to comprehend or even measure time in such a state, as studying anything in a time of nonexistence is rather impossible. It just results in never-ending circles of inconclusive theories that mankind will probably never know the answer to, but goodness knows it won't stop mankind from trying.
 

Jam Stunna

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This proves that devices meant to track time can be thrown off by the movement of space. I hate that scientists use these experiments to claim that time can be slowed, or that time is relative, because this is ONLY true of devices that try to track time. I would argue that time flows at an even pace, and that physical materials are simply incapable of keeping track of it perfectly.

I don't believe that time itself can be manipulated and slowed down. This is only true of the flawed experience of time that humans percieve because of our methods of tracking it. When astronauts go into space and come back slightly younger, it's not because they slowed down time itself, it's because their own experiential time, determined by the way in which their matter interacts with space, was affected by movement and speed.

Also, Sol, I think you're missing the point of the OP. OP is saying that there was never a time before time, not that there is a lack of time within time.
Didn't you just describe relativistic time in the middle paragraph?
 

MuraRengan

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Yes I did. I should have made myself more clear. I don't think that this phenomena is "real" time. I don't think it has anything to do with time at all. When you break it down, its a function of the interaction of matter in space. We call it a difference in time, because its effects have everything to do with how we experience time, but time had no hand in causing it.
 

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Interesting debate, while we are on this topic, can someone explain time dilation to me? I still can't seem to completely wrap my head around it.

:phone:
 

Theftz22

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Btw, I no longer agree with my OP because I failed to take into account relations of simultaneity. Simultaneity is a temporal relation just as much as being temporally prior to or temporally after something else. Therefore anything which is simultaneous with something is also temporal. In the case of time as a whole, time is simultaneous with itself, and therefore temporal, not timeless. It might be objected that to be temporal something must be simultaneous with something else, or else everything would be temporal as anything is simultaneous with itself, and therefore everything would be considered temporal. However this is not true, timeless things are not simultaneous with themselves, as simultaneity means things happen at the same time, but in the case of timeless things they happen at no time at all.
 

Insom

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this makes perfect sense.
Time has to have no foreseeable end, as the end of time can only really come when there is no longer anything left to feel the effects of time.
If time can only end when nothing is left to feel it's effects, then if would of course eventually have an end. But I don't believe time would cease to exist simply because nothing was feelings it's effects.
The way I see it, time is a creation of a conscious being, in this case man, made simply to measure changes or the lack of change in comparison to other things. As such, while objects will continue to change until there are none left to go through this transition, time will only exist while there are beings who can comprehend the changes and measure them with the concept of time.
One does not need to be able to feel the effects of something for it to be affecting them.
Take a black hole. Black holes distort time/space. Time is not a physical being, and does not feel the effect, but it is affected nonetheless. If time can be affected without actually feeling the effects, who's to say time will stop just because nothing is feelings it's effects. It's still there;Its still affecting things. But just like time doesn't feel the effects of a black hole, the things that will still be here when us humans are not, will not feel the effects of time.
 
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