Does Time Really Exist?

Rational discussions on metaphysical and abstract topics.
Hoenir
Posts: 137
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: Does Time Really Exist?

Post by Hoenir »

Hoenir wrote: My own account is pluralistic. I think that there are no many forms of time and they all exist
Omg, there should not be "no" between "are" and "many"! :oops:

I want to add something to the idea of "hierarchical ontologies". When I argued against hierarchical ontologies, my point was not that ontological distinctions are impossible to make or that there is something wrong in ontology in general. On the contrary, it is possible to draw ontological distinctions between different regions of being, but it is impossible to put everything together and thus close the system. Why? Because it belongs to the very nature of thinking that it operates within some context or another and thus necessary excludes something. A complete hierarchy of being is impossible to think (and every time when we hallucinate that "now I think absolutely everything" we have just excluded huge chunks of reality outside of our picture), but this does not mean that we cannot say something meaningful within ontology.
"Futile as a ghost I stand guard over hidden gold, O lord of the meeting rivers"
Hoenir
Posts: 137
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: Does Time Really Exist?

Post by Hoenir »

Yet two clarifications for my "clarifications"... :mrgreen:

1. When I drew a distinction between "existence" and "real existence", my main idea was to point out that if one talks about "real" existence, he/she has already committed to an idea of somehow lesser or secondary form of existence, which refers usually to subjectivity. When people draw this ontological distinction (often implicitly), they aren't usually making a positive statement about real existence, but they are weakening the ontological status of our experiences. This is the reason why I claimed that if one forgets this distinction (and thus accepts that our experienced reality is as "real" as anything else), there is no problem with time, because then we can claim that at least two forms of subjective time really exists. This is the way how aforementioned ontological ideas are related to time.

2. When I claimed that there seems to be more than one form of time (I claimed that we can distinguish between two purely subjective forms of time, public time of our society and those forms of time to which sciences are committed), I had one presupposition in my mind. This presupposition is that I think that aristotelians are right when they claim that time does not exist in itself. According to their view, time exists only in relation to changes and concrete events. And because I think that there are several ontological regions which are constituted differently (i.e. they include different kind of relations and events), I think that these regions (for example, objective nature, psychic life and society) have different temporal structures. And because these regions are irreducible, I can claim that their temporal structures are also irreducible and unique.
"Futile as a ghost I stand guard over hidden gold, O lord of the meeting rivers"
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Cerastes
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2018 10:31 pm

Re: Does Time Really Exist?

Post by Cerastes »

You brought up some really intriguing thoughts on this complex topic. I enjoyed reading them.

In fact, the only way for a physicist to define time is the change of matter, meaning the duration from one event to another. As far as I know, time is mostly seen as an emergence from other influences at the current scientific approach, which would be pretty close to the idea of Aristoteles.
The Planck-time is the smallest possible linear time concept, that goes by the known laws of physics (1= duration of light speed passing one Planck-length). Every duration shorter than this must necessarily be quantized (-> fragmented) and is not stated as a continuum anymore. All of this is just based on mathematical derivation, nothing more.

I’m a little skeptical here since I doubt the very base of this calculation for it demands the existence a collective truth. The possibility of an individual influence on the shaping of time is not jet in the focus of discussion. No dimension is straight linear, it’s just a simplification suitable for the human intellect.
However, if there is no matter, there cannot be a time as we know it. Just like a lightning cannot emerge ex nihilo for it is just a fulguration.
There could be a non-material time which does not run by the laws of physics or walk in line. I imagine it to surround us without leading straight to one specific direction. Maybe like an atmosphere keeping everything together. Let’s call it spirit-time. But again our ability to sense those things is limited and therefor everything is just a nutshell-sized approach.
Hoenir wrote:And because we are simultaneously committed to several conceptions of time, we dont simply have acces to such a perspective that would allow us to look time "from outside" and thus to create hierarchical ontological model of time.
Exactly. Like good-old Socrates already noticed:
οἶδα οὐκ εἰδώς (I know that I know nothing)
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
obnoxion
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Re: Does Time Really Exist?

Post by obnoxion »

Hoenir wrote:...it is impossible to put everything together and thus close the system.
I have personal view of things as fragments, and that is both an aesthetic and a thelogical view. One way I have come to this view is through the futility of attemtping a closed system. Closed systems tend to be children of brutal exclusions, and the one way to include the excluded is the see world as consisting of wholesome fragments. Each fragment is in itself a picture of perfection with a center (the Akula of the Tantras; the Protestant Principle of Tillich) and the periphery (the Kula of the Tantras; the Catholic Substance of Tillich). So there must exist a perfection, because each fragment reflects it like a piece of a broken mirror. But it consists of the fragments AND the blackness between them. So although I have no words to speak about the ontology of time, I see a fragmented picture of perfection in each moment.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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