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What is time?


JG.

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a. A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
b. An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration
c. A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval
d. A similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes
e. A system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned

Take your pick.
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Time is the measurement of the distance between two events, but not "distance" in terms of the common meaning.

It's extremely difficult to define time without using the word time somewhere in the definition, but that is exactly the point of a definition. Time is such an abstract and manmade thing that defining it would require tons of assumptions. I could say that time is the amount of time between two events, measured in the SI Unit of seconds, but now I am trying to define time with itself and a measurement. "Distance is the distance between two points, measured in meters." It's stupid.

When I usually think of time, because time is so relative based on location, gravitational pull, et cetera, I think of your body's internal time. Whether you are on Earth and one second is one second, or whether you are gravitating around a black hole where one second is really sixty seconds, your body is still aging one Earth second per second of time. Just because you are gravitating around a black hole doesn't mean you age sixty times as quickly, so I usually define time as the relative age of the cells in your body, although that definition can be tweaked if anyone actually is good at biology around here.
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Time. What is it, but a Manipulation of the Spatial Events Beyond Our Comphrension, and Finite in Human's Thought, yet Infinite in the Continuum. Nobody can control time, as that would require ripping a hole in the Space that is the void named the Space-Time Continuum. It is so empty, yet it holds everything in the universe, in it's grip. It commands when something is born, when it dies, what is built or destroyed. Nobody can expect what comes next, so Time is of one Mystery Humans cannot Solve.
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[quote name='Trident Dragon/Assult Mode' timestamp='1300051786' post='5071940']
[center][size="3"][i][font="Palatino Linotype"]Time is the measurement between 2 exsisting events, with out substance there is no possible time to exsist.[/font][/i][/size]

it's not rocket science[/center]
[/quote]
You're right, it's relativity and quantum physics.

The people who say time does not exist are the people who mean that we wouldn't know if we were late if we didn't have watches. They are confusing the measurement of time with Time itself, apparently a property of the universe related to Space. That still doesn't answer pertinent questions like if time is linear or not, but it culls the first round of people Not Qualified to Debate This Question.
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*takes a deep breath*

Alright, I have very conflicting thoughts at this moment, and I think I'll spew them out.

Time is essentialy another one of Man's measurements, like metres and stuff like that. We describe in order to understand it, which helps us describe it better. However, time is a word describing something that may or may not exist, so it may be dependable depending on how you look at it.

However, there is, as stated above by Dark, internal body time. If time does not exist, we would never grow old, which brings back the question: What the **** is time anyway?

In my opinion, time is a measurement of what we think is the "distance between A and B", where A and B are not=0, and the difference is not 0 (obviously). It exists, but can be called by many names and many different units of measurements. Therefore, it DOES exist, but many are still speculating.

Well, that's about it. :D

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  • 3 weeks later...
Time is the one thing in the entirety of the universe that is irreplaceable, at least that I can think of off the top of my head.

Time is subjective. Mostly because, time has no frame of reference without events. If you did the exact same thing every day, and nothing every changed, then time itself would blur from your perspective. Days, weeks, months, years would all blend together as one, lump mass. Of course, it is pretty difficult to not have any frame of reference with things like changing seasons and all that, but if you stayed in a cold, dark room for all eternity, where nothing changed, you didn't move, you didn't eat, all you did was lay there and breath, and try and count the days, you would be wholly unsuccessful.

Time is a resource. It is the most valuable thing in the entirety of the universe because it cannot be replaced. Material items, even loved ones can soon be replaced with new ones you love. Although the ones that you have gained will never be the same as those you have lost, but you will eventually grow to love them as you did the ones you lost.
It is the frame in which everything happens, and you need time to complete whatever it is you want to do. However, if someone wastes the time that you were given through whatever means, that time you had will never be replaced.

Time is a man made. It is a frame of reference that humans have created to grasp when things have happened, so that all things seen and done can be remembered. Without time, we would never be able to explain anything. All we would have is a bunch of photos in our heads of past events that we cannot put into words because we have no frame of reference that measures when or how long.
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Time to allude to Plato's allegorical cave. Say you were stuck in an abyss and you couldn't see, hear, feel, smell, or sense anything at all. You know time is changing, but you can't measure any change because all your senses are numb. How do you know time's changing? This is a much more metaphysically ambiguous one because conscious awareness is not a valid argument for the existence of an unobservable or quantifiable event as our 'awareness' of the world is inherently based in some kind of perception which like all perceptions is subject to error.
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  • 5 weeks later...
Time: A set interval of hours, seconds, minutes, days, moths, years, decades, centuries and millenniums.

I don't believe in time. Sounds weird, but think about it; if a clock in your house is wrong, which clock do you set it to? How do you know if the times you set the other clocks to is right? How do you know if one clock is one hour ahead, or an hour behind, or just the right time?
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[quote name='機皇神龍アステリスク' timestamp='1300139328' post='5074161']
You're right, it's relativity and quantum physics.

The people who say time does not exist are the people who mean that we wouldn't know if we were late if we didn't have watches. They are confusing the measurement of time with Time itself, apparently a property of the universe related to Space. That still doesn't answer pertinent questions like if time is linear or not, but it culls the first round of people Not Qualified to Debate This Question.
[/quote]

Time IS linear because everything that happens DOES happen as a result of impacting conditions. Anything that happened was going to happen or else it wouldn't have.

Also, time itself is a measurement. It's the measurement of intervals by which materials express motion. Therefore, time itself does NOT exist as a physical property. Time, however, IS relative, contrary to the popular belief that time is universally constant. The people unfit for this debate that you're referring to are those who claim Einstein's theory of general relativity isn't true. On the other hand, asserting that time doesn't exist isn't concretely correct or incorrect; likewise, it is debatable.
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