– Is time a real, tangible thing, or just a concept invented by humans that doesn’t actually exist?

Question

Also, if time does exist, doesn’t there have to be a definable beginning or end? Otherwise it’s just infinity which to me suggests the absense of time.

I partially read “The Discoverers” by Daniel Boorstin several years ago and he discussed how different societies conceptualized of time and how they kept time. And it has had me wondering ever since. Then I started exploring Zen Buddhism which emphasizes the present moment as the only tangible reality, along with the illusion of the ego, which only furthered my questioning.

EDIT – I am aware that the concept of time is based on the revolution of the Earth and it’s moon. However, that is just how humans conceive of time. That’s not proof of time itself.

EDIT 2 – The explanation of timespace and relativity is the best from an objective point of view. No matter how much I read or watch, it was always a bit hard to grasp but it makes sense in terms of change or entropy. The reality of time being flexible vs the human perception of time being linear and unchangeable gets closer to what I am asking.

EDIT 3 – “Exist” is a tricky word.

In: 7871

Answer 1

It exists, but not as an independent thing. The fact that we treat it as a distinct thing is a quirk/limitation with our perception of it. Time and space are actually the same thing which is why we refer to it as spacetime.

The reason that we don’t interpret it “correctly” is because it’s hard to because you only start to notice contradictory evidence to our daily experience at extreme scales. For example, the “easiest” way to demonstrate that time isn’t how we generally perceive it requires having super accurate clocks as well as the ability to put such clocks into high earth orbit. When you do this you find that the clocks in high earth orbit run more slowly than clocks on the earth’s surface. It turns out that this is because they’re experiencing less gravity.

Gravity warps spacetime which is why it affects both object travelling through space as well as the passing of time because space and time are not two things but the same thing. Time is more like a vector of 4th spacetime. Similar to how up, down, forwards and backwards are vectors of three dimensional space.