# Humanities & Anthropology > Philosophy >  The Illusion of Time.. Is Time really going in just one direction?

## julia90

The Illusion of Time.. Is Time really going in just one direction?
Some natural process on *microscopic level* have the propriety of reverse.. from a reaction from past to future you can then return to the previous state, impling time or at least the process is reversive past-->future-->past-->future and so on..
But on *macroscopic level* the reverse process doesn't exhist.. you can't return to the past condition..

Is time an Illusion ?

a Video:

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## LeBrok

You can also look differently at concept of Time, which could be nothing more than movement of matter and energy through space.
Imagine that you stop electrons, protons, energy from moving through space, or somehow you could freeze fabric of space, so nothing, not even energy could move through it. All movement would stop therefore time too. Nothing would move, change place or state of energy, the light couldn't travel through space. You wouldn't find a clock, even atomic clock ticking either.
No movement, no time.
It's counter intuitive, because the truth could be that it is not the time (as we know it) ticking to allowing movement and things to happen, but it is rather movement in space that creates changes and gives meaning of time. 
Time could be nothing more than law of physics that allowed movement though fabric of space.

It is rather ironic that we gave time a separate concept, created time identity, its own dimension and unique concept in our mind, if all our time measurements are based on movement. We measure days and years based on Earth movement through space, we measure time of day based on hands of clock movement, we measure splits of second based on atoms movement. 
Isn't it all about movement?

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## ElHorsto

Thanks for the video link. That makes me think further about Kurt Gödel who proved that sufficiently complex logical systems are able to express theorems which can not be proven true or false within that same system unless the system is being extended accordingly. That means that each attempt to make an absolute statement about our universe, e.g. time, always results in an implicit extension of the same, making it impossible. Observation = interaction = extension of the universe = increase of entropy = step forward in "time". It is impossible to observe a "de-observation" (reducing entropy), because that is a roll-back in time. If we travel back in time by 100% then we are unable to notice that, since everything, our observations, memories etc. are rolled back to an earlier state as well. Actually it is impossible to prove that we are not caught in an endless time loop. The past and future are merely forms of existence.

Another example:
The syntactical definition of a language (e.g. an algorithm) usually has a much lower entropy than the actual language it describes. A prominent example are Fractals, which are almost infinitely complex despite they can be described by very few simple recursive formulas. Some might say that the fractal starts existing only when the formulas (algorithm) are being numerically calculated by a computer. Others might say that the fractal starts already existing when its formulas are being written down. Both is somewhat true. So the universe could be considered as a language, recursively defined by the same language. Every attempt to describe the language by the same language requires extension of the same language, etc. etc. ...

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## julia90

another video interesting.. about *SPACE*.. what is Space?.. Space, Speed and Time are correlated.. it can help us understanding Time

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## ElHorsto

Great, Space is an illusion too. That makes me muse a lot. If there would be a physicist available, I'd have plenty of layman questions: Could the "spooky distant action" of entangled photons in quantum mechanics possibly be easily explained just by a modified space, similar to how Einstein explained the universally constant light speed? Precisely, two entangled distant particles would then be not distant at all, just the space around them would have been cut and moved, making the particles appear distant for us. If yes, could it be that photons (or similar particles) actually define the space? If yes, could it be that spacial proximity in space is actually the same as entanglement? If yes, then we would get rid of that "spooky distant action".

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## LeBrok

> You can also look differently at concept of Time, which could be nothing more than movement of matter and energy through space.
> Imagine that you stop electrons, protons, energy from moving through space, or somehow you could freeze fabric of space, so nothing, not even energy could move through it. All movement would stop therefore time too. Nothing would move, change place or state of energy, the light couldn't travel through space. You wouldn't find a clock, even atomic clock ticking either.
> No movement, no time.
> It's counter intuitive, because the truth could be that it is not the time (as we know it) ticking to allowing movement and things to happen, but it is rather movement in space that creates changes and gives meaning of time. 
> Time could be nothing more than law of physics that allowed movement though fabric of space.
> 
> It is rather ironic that we gave time a separate concept, created time identity, its own dimension and unique concept in our mind, if all our time measurements are based on movement. We measure days and years based on Earth movement through space, we measure time of day based on hands of clock movement, we measure splits of second based on atoms movement. 
> Isn't it all about movement?


I've rethought time a bit. 
If there was movement but no time, the movement would have been instantaneous. Let's say you "pushed" fabric of space on one side of cosmos or threw a ball, it would be immediately felt on other side, or ball showed up there in no time. Other implication would be that the world would start and end at same time. You would see the start a small dot (whatever it was) then suddenly you would be in a middle of vast ether with all suns burned out, energy dissipated and frozen space, or maybe you would see a small dot again. All the movement, the history of the world, would happen instantly.
But it is not like this at all. We can see changes, and we observe different time speeds, relativity of time, as Einstein discovered.
To comply with these observations, I reworked my understanding of time.
I'm assuming there must be some delay in movement of space or through space, space fibers or strings - whatever the space is made of. Looks like movement, energy or just information travels gradually from one space fiber to another.
Either the fibers are loosely woven and takes time to bounce into another to send information or energy farther, or there might be internal speed/time limit in a fiber. Built in smallest time unit, quantum of time, a tick of time, to transmit energy from one end of a fiber to the other end.
I'm still thinking that time is strongly linked to movement, movement of space or space fibers, and it might be it's core mechanism. I don't think time exists by itself as 4th dimension, extra grid in space.

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## Dagne

Thanks Julia! I really like topics like this about the Illusion of Time ... I think the Physicists are missing some part in their equations to fully explain the connection between Time, Space and something else – relating to the parallel universes perhaps…

Anyway, the Buddhists seems to be quite right about the illusionary nature of the reality.

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## julia90

Here a video about zero gravity, created on special planes.. you see people floating in the plain, as well  :Smiling:  a woman was used as a ball bouncing from people to people.. I bet we all would like to prove something as that.. maybe the next tourism journey would be on this planes, when they will be economically axcessible to many people




The opposite sensation; he's sperimenting incresing Gravity 1G=earth gravity, 2G, 3G, 4G until 5G

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## ElHorsto

A nice interactive exploration of the scale of the universe:

http://htwins.net/scale2/

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## LeBrok

A great find ElHorsto. Amazing eye opener for relation of big and small.

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## julia90

Illuminating intereaction thanks ElHorsto

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## mrikë

Clearly motion is a fundamental characteristic of matter, the lack of which would cause the universe in its entirety to be static (and in a metaphysical sense non-existent). In a macroscopic level, weak and strong forces are caused by matter per se, whose mere existence ensures a string of side effects (i.e. theaforesaid forces). In a general context, time is nonexistent - if matter were to have a momentum of the speed of light its properties as "perceived matter" would be lost and it would essentially convert to energy (or light if you will). The speed of light is the actual movement barrier of matter in universe, therefore properties which it would hold on a normal state will vanish, therefore such concepts as time will not exist. The issue that arises now, however, is if light/energy does not have properties of matter, how come gravity bends it, and in that sense energy itself acts as matter? Well, because it's not being affected by its own gravity, seeing that this process happens in respect to another interstellar body. In a hypothetical way say one was to travel at a speed of light, as predicted by Einstein and so wonderfully explained by Sagan, theoretically we would travel to the future. Which brings us to what Hawking says, that time ultimately has a direction, but only in respect to matter, not energy. On another note, if one was to consider this through quantum physics applicable theories, the essential point remains that in the tiniest bits of matter (which arephysically almost matter-less) the paradoxical functioning of energy starts to apply, by which point I would like to insert the famous Schrödinger paradox regardingquantum entanglement. Similar is the concept on which time relates to energy. It doesn't exist until a point one decides to measure mechanical characteristics of energy in absolute respect to classical mechanics lawswithout which onlyour perception would be impossible.

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## L.D.Brousse

Maybe we are much smaller than we think. Does a flea on a dog think a neighborhood looks like infinity? Us humans are so limited through sight and sound most think if you can't see it or weigh it it don't exist. I don't think time really exist only in our narrow minds I also believe we coexist with other dimensions almost like in the movie the others. Crazy I know but who knows. I think in away proof has been found and I think lots of phenomenon could be explained using this concept EVPs Electronic voice phenomenon is one case I have done this in my own home and recorded voices Could it be when conditions are right we can hear another dimension? Sorry to post such crazy notions

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## gervais

Space and time have minimum values below which our physical laws (and common sense) can not be applied.
These are the Planck time and Planck length.
Time and space are interrelated and vary according to the reference. 
For example, for a photon, it moves only in space but not in time, whereas for us, if we look, it also travels in time (300,000,000 m / s)

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## The Alani Dragon

Like distance, time is a measurement between two set points, and so it can hardly be classed as an illusion by that measurement.

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## Riccardo

Time is a convention, we consider it because in our single life experience we relate with a beginning and an end of everything. But in the whole universe this human conception of experience disappears and everything is in transformation. Time is something that exists for us only by induction.

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## LeBrok

> Like distance, time is a measurement between two set points, and so it can hardly be classed as an illusion by that measurement.


This is really insightful and a simple proof that time exists. I'm just hoping that it is your idea, not like the situation with a stolen poem from other thread. Otherwise pleas give a credit to creator, and I don't mean god. :))

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## gervais

> Like distance, time is a measurement between two set points, and so it can hardly be classed as an illusion by that measurement.


As the time and the space have an indivisible minimal value, a point cannot be considered as one only one dimension and does not exist, quite as the present. It is then necessary to consider that a point have already a dimension and the present have already an interval of time. Thus, the time is a succession of this minimal interval (planck time)

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## Balder

Imagine you in space observing the Earth rotate,when she perform a back,will have passed a time equivalent to12:0 am for those who are on Earth, but you're watching will not suffer space action this time because it will occur some timeless than the suffered here on Earth, or whatever, time is relative, depends on theplace of observation. A paradox. A succession of static moments.

That it is. An illusion, where we use the compass to build engines in it, because we feel differently, to sleep, to be happy, be hopeful, be anxious etc. As the monetary illusion, they are the handcuffs that we grab for our existence.

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