Are you retarded?

blackoutHERO wrote:Isn't time just a measurement? Like metres and millimetres. A way for us to gage size etc.

No, seconds and hours are measurements like metres and millimetres.

Time, like distance, is the factor being measured, and existed before life could perceive of it and will continue to exist long after life ceases to.

Time is a direction, like forwards.

It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Light always gives me that headfuck feeling.

As does chemistry. Add another oxygen atom to dioxygen and you get something you can't breath.

We're going in a strange new direction with this thread.

As for the time discussion, I'm with Skarj on this one - time is always there and it's always happening. The way we measure time, with our clocks and our calendars, hasn't always been there. As long as there is change in the universe, there is time.

I'm pretty sure that time and space are the same thing. Anything moving in space is also moving in time, so obviously the conceptual flow of time is simply another expression for the flow of movement in physical space.

Lotus wrote:But if we did away with our measurement of time, things would just happen and we'd have no perception of what time was, how long things took to happen, or how long it had been from one event to another.

That's like saying if we didn't have rulers and tape measures, there'd be no distances.

It's still just as far from one place to another whether you have the means to measure that distance or not, and like time, it's entirely relative.

Knoyleo wrote:

Lotus wrote:But if we did away with our measurement of time, things would just happen and we'd have no perception of what time was, how long things took to happen, or how long it had been from one event to another.

That's like saying if we didn't have rulers and tape measures, there'd be no distances.

It's still just as far from one place to another whether you have the means to measure that distance or not, and like time, it's entirely relative.

I always understood that time was relative to the species, so whilst a mayfly may only live 24 hours, to that creature is is like a human lifetime, and not a very short period. This goes on experience of the universe too, so a tortoise moves very slowly because it percieves the passing of time in a different way to man, so as far as the tortoise is concerned every other species is moving at a million miles an hour and it is moving at what it considers to be normal pace. The same with a fly: because it moves so quickly it percieves things moving quickly as normal speed, which is why trying to hit them with a swatter is so hard, because the fly sees it coming in slow motion and has time to react, whereas if you creep up on a fly and slowly squish it it doesnt register you because your going too slowly for it to detetct you.

Carlos done just exploded my mindbrain.

Carlos wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:

Lotus wrote:But if we did away with our measurement of time, things would just happen and we'd have no perception of what time was, how long things took to happen, or how long it had been from one event to another.

That's like saying if we didn't have rulers and tape measures, there'd be no distances.

It's still just as far from one place to another whether you have the means to measure that distance or not, and like time, it's entirely relative.

I always understood that time was relative to the species, so whilst a mayfly may only live 24 hours, to that creature is is like a human lifetime, and not a very short period. This goes on experience of the universe too, so a tortoise moves very slowly because it percieves the passing of time in a different way to man, so as far as the tortoise is concerned every other species is moving at a million miles an hour and it is moving at what it considers to be normal pace. The same with a fly: because it moves so quickly it percieves things moving quickly as normal speed, which is why trying to hit them with a swatter is so hard, because the fly sees it coming in slow motion and has time to react, whereas if you creep up on a fly and slowly squish it it doesnt register you because your going too slowly for it to detetct you.

What I meant by relative is that we measure how long it takes for one thing to happen in relation to other things. A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times. Even if we had no measurement for time, or there were no humans around to observe this passage of time, that would still be happening.

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Of course, it's how leap years happen, eh?

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Not exactly 365.25 times though, for leap years don't happen exactly once every four years.

A year is a leap year when
- it is dividable by 4 (2008 was a leap year) except
- when it is also dividable by 100 (1900 was not a leap year) except
- when it's also dividable by 400 (2000 was a leap year).

Dandy Kong wrote:

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Not exactly 365.25 times though, for leap years don't happen exactly once every four years.

A year is a leap year when
- it is dividable by 4 (2008 was a leap year) except
- when it is also dividable by 100 (1900 was not a leap year) except
- when it's also dividable by 400 (2000 was a leap year).

Yeah, that is mind blowing stuff...

Extralife wrote:I'm pretty sure that time and space are the same thing. Anything moving in space is also moving in time, so obviously the conceptual flow of time is simply another expression for the flow of movement in physical space.

Woo, space-time! You nailed it really, time is just our way of noting how things flow through the fourth dimension. Indeed, we're all speeding through the time dimension at the speed of light but only in one direction (as opposed to the other three dimensions which work in both directions). Depending on what you consider you are relative to, you're never really in the same absolute location at any given moment in any dimension, but this is easier to see with time and not the other dimensions as everything regardless of relativity to one another is speeding through time.

Mind Crime wrote:

Dandy Kong wrote:

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Not exactly 365.25 times though, for leap years don't happen exactly once every four years.

A year is a leap year when
- it is dividable by 4 (2008 was a leap year) except
- when it is also dividable by 100 (1900 was not a leap year) except
- when it's also dividable by 400 (2000 was a leap year).

Dandy Kong wrote:

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

Not exactly 365.25 times though, for leap years don't happen exactly once every four years.

A year is a leap year when
- it is dividable by 4 (2008 was a leap year) except
- when it is also dividable by 100 (1900 was not a leap year) except
- when it's also dividable by 400 (2000 was a leap year).

Holy Christ.

Mind Crime wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:A simple example is that in the same time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun, the Earth itself will rotate 365 times.

365.25 times.

Oh yeah, I just blew all your minds.

365.2425 times.