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.
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On an atomic level time exists. We see this in radioactive decay. Many of our experiments on time dilation relied on clocks counting the radioactive decay of Cs137.
So the way different societies categorize or divide it will change. But the premise does exist.
I have no idea what do you mean by “real”, but the answer probably lies in that matter. Once you define what real is, it will be pretty easy to tell if the concept of time is something real or not.
Time can be thought of as the ordering of cause and effect. If an event causes another event then it must precede it in time. We perceive time because we perceive causality.
Time is a linear function of the 4th dimension that we perceive as 3-dimensional beings. A 4-dimensional being would exist in what we perceive as the past, present and future simultaneously, hypothetically being able to navigate through them the same way we move through height, depth and width.
If you’ve seen that scene in Interstellar where McConaghey’s character is behind the bookshelf, that’s essentially a *very* basic representation of the 4th dimension.
So whether time is “real” or not is completely subjective.
What we call time is literally a physical part of the universe, so yes, it is real outside of humans. We can confirm this using experiments in general relativity and special relativity.
Time works a bit different from how people tend to assume time works, but it absolutely is a real part of the universe.
The philosophical view (with Kant, and lots of philosophers afterwards) is that time and space are concepts of the human mind (Vernunft) which shape what we can perceive, so instead of one blob of whatever, we get to see (hear, taste, think about) structured impressions (which are further shaped by our mind (Verstand), into categories like number, quality, mode, ..).
Thus, we cannot think otherwise than in time and space, but have no way to find out if “the real thing” (outside our maybe faulty perceptions and reasonings) is actually shaped like this, or not.
So, time and space: maybe just human way to look at things, maybe how they really are. We don’t know, and cannot ever know.
Time is an essential part of 4 dimensional existence according to einstein, you can have a 3 dimensional universe where everything is reacting the same as ours but without time those reactions and subsequent movements don’t take place. Therefore in 4 dimensions, time is space and space is time, they are inseparable ideas. Without time there is no space because the universe simply never exists. Without the universe there is no time because there is no passage of space for it to measure. Not sure that explains it all that well but I tried to get it to eli5 level. But basically, yes, time is real.
Currently, in the field of physics we don’t have a way to prove that time exists (at least yet). We do have proof, however, of the existence of space-time. We know that time moves differently based on things like speed and gravity, but we don’t have any way to prove that time can exist without space (or vice versa).
Basically we know that time is real in the context of space and matter, but we currently have no way of knowing if time would still move without the existence of stuff. I find it very interesting that it’s so easy for us to split these two in our minds, but if you think about it it’s hard to conceptualize one without the other.
Richard Feynman postulated that positrons are electrons that have hit the end of time and are travelling backwards to then bounce off the start of time as an electron again. Wild shit. Now consider that there may only be one electron or position in the whole universe and we’re just experiencing a ‘slice’ of all it’s travels back and forth
Time is a concept intended to relay or encapsulate a pre existing thing. Time is simply time. It is intended to encapsulate how long things take. But its happening all the time whether anything is physically taking place or not. Like think about your question for example how could time possibly not exist?
Can you expound a bit on what exactly you mean? Like what are you considering as potentially man made? The measurement units (day, hour, minute, etc)? Because sure those are man made. Not entirely arbitrary as others have pointed out but yes those are just terms we use to describe certain markers having taken place.
But ultimately time is time, its always happening. The idea of it having a start and end can make it harder to grasp as a whole, I get that. But all that king of stuff gets into the even bigger cosmological questions of existence. Its all still theory at this point.
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