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Miscellaneous > Is there really a "point" in "time"?

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message 1: by Breezy (new)

Breezy  | 5 comments Does “time” really exist? Sure, you can see the sun go up and go back down but we decided to make seconds, minutes, and hours, days, weeks, months and years, but is time just a figment of our imagination, a way to describe when? We decided how long a second is so now everyone in the world uses this way of explaining when something is.
Also what is the exact “time” we all have or have seen clocks but they all change numbers at different seconds, no one perfectly sets a clock to the exact second it is supposed to be a minute. There is no exact “time”, just as a dot is a never ending discovery of place, seconds aren’t just seconds they can be broken down further and further. So every clock changes at different “times”, whether it’s a minute apart, a second apart, or something smaller.
We decided there is 365 days in a year so when it’s your “birthday” is it really? We decided how long everything is so how old are we really? Does age even exist?


Does a “point” really exist? Sure, you can see a “point” on a graph but is it really on the exact number you think it is on? We use a “point” to explain where something is but there is no exact “point.” On a graph there isn’t just 0 and then 1 there are many, many numbers in between. You can break down the space in between 0 and 1 to very small numbers so a point isn’t really just plotted where you want to to be, it is on multiple numbers. We can just keep breaking down the space in between the numbers but it will never stop so you can never actually plot the point without it being in the wrong spot. So I ask again does a point really exist?
Also what is a “point” it has no known shape or size, so how do we know a line isn’t a “point”? It is said that a line is just a bunch of “points” put together, but we question if a “point” exists, so does a line really exist? Is a line not just a “point”? Everything can be broken down further and further, how do we know what anything truly is? Is anything nothing? Is everything just what we are told it is and what we want it to be?
I was just thinking about this and wanted to know the opinions of others. So, if you have any thoughts, please share. :)


message 2: by Gerd (last edited Apr 26, 2017 01:03AM) (new)

Gerd | 428 comments I don't think that "time" as something passing exists.
Time as a measure by which we mark cycles of growth, change, decay - sure, and by that measure everything else exist.

The length of a meter, is a meter, is a meter.
Doesn't matter if by any other systerm it would have a different length, or if "length" itself is non-existent outside of what we are able to perceive. So for age goes the same, it doesn't matter much how exact our means of measure for it are, or how relevant at all.
Age exists in the context of we, in the context of our measure of time - and that's all that matters.

Because if you get right down to it, all "existence" is actually only a figment of our mind.
A limited perception of what is.


message 3: by Ross (new)

Ross | 1444 comments The effects you describe are results if the three laws of thermodynamics, in particular the third where all energy tends to less useful forms ending in heat.

the universe will eventually degrade to heat, The heat death of the universe as it is known. It will however take a little time, or not... :)


message 4: by Robin (new)

Robin (z_rob) | 128 comments I suggest you read Albert Einstein' s works, it might help you making your opinion about this question.


message 5: by Breezy (new)

Breezy  | 5 comments Thank you all so much for your feedback, I'll look into your suggestions. I didn't really do much research, I just typed what came to mind. This is very helpful and I appreciate it very much, Thanks :)


message 6: by Samantha (new)

Samantha Matherne (creolelitbelle) Breezy, I have these thoughts for you:

We only exist but for a moment in time, and like a speck of sand on the beach, in the grand scheme of the universe we do not matter. Sure, in the history of planet Earth each person's impact on the world matters to differing degrees, but there is hardly one person in the world that could make a big enough impact to wholly change the scheme of the planet, or to really affect time and history (history is ultimately events over this supposed "time"). For the horrific things done in their names and under their powers, even Hitler and Mao and Stalin had armies. Time, as the impact of any one person, is all relative to what you perceive it to be.

On that note, there are two books I would like to mention. First, Todd Strasser has a scene in his book Drive Me Crazy (movie starring Melissa Joan Hart, but less philosophical moments than the book) when two characters walk down the street and ponder life. Teenage boys. One spits in the road. He asks his friend to look behind his spit and in front of his spit. If I recall correctly, the friend asks "what's the point"; if not, that's the idea you're meant to take from the action. The first guy explains that's his question. The road is time. The spit is one human life. He's ultimately asking, what is the point, what is time, and why do we as people and our actions and the events and stuff we deal with really matter in the grand scheme of time. They, being in high school, truly are at a great place to wonder about this. Not to sound depressing, but that scene came to me with your question and has always stuck out to me from the book.

The other book I must mention is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I have only read that and the second in the quintet yet, but the series basically begins with the question of "what is time". Truly, it is what we as humans believe it to be.

That's the philosophical thoughts. Scientifically, time comes from the revolution of Earth in space both around the sun and on its axis and with the moon around Earth. Now, you check Einstein, because for "what is time", the answer all depends on how you look at the question - again, relativity.


message 7: by Mystic Orange (last edited Mar 08, 2018 03:42PM) (new)

Mystic Orange (Rumell) (rkrespectedmember) Time does exist. It is a scientific fact.


message 8: by [deleted user] (new)

It's an old knowledge from my physical tuition from several years ago but as I can remember, Time is just a name human gives to the succession of billion and billion of events from the Big Bang to now.

I read somewhere the smallest unity of time was defined by the fastest chemical reaction human ever made.


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