[Kevinaswell]

This will more than likely alter the way you look at everything ever:

What are the repercussions FOR YOU that this line of thinking brings to light?

I'm only in love with the idea.

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

Isn't this the same as gravitational time dilation or did I miss something?

 

[Nearsification]

You posted this before. But it is still not less awesome.:tongue:

 

[thewindlistens]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? He says no. I think that's silly.

Dude's jumping from the obvious to the nonsensical and back. We are not cosmic, geocentric or chronocentric or whatever. We are within our own minds, nothing more. The only access we ever have to the supposed outer world is through our senses. So it's possible to enter sensory conditions that you've never experienced before and get confused. So what. That's his subjective proof and nothing more.

He's saying, ultimately, that we experience time subjectively. Woop-dee-doo. We experience everything subjectively. And we will never know if that tree makes a sound, one way or the other.

Yes, it would be wonderful. I have to listen to what a wonderful world now. But wishful thinking on the part of anyone is not proof of anything.

Though, I do strongly respect the fact that he took the time to say he might be wrong. The same goes for me.

 

[Kevinaswell]

You posted this before. But it is still not less awesome.:tongue:

I think you're right!

I was drunk from noon onward yesterday. Oops.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? He says no. I think that's silly.

Dude's jumping from the obvious to the nonsensical and back. We are not cosmic, geocentric or chronocentric or whatever. We are within our own minds, nothing more. The only access we ever have to the supposed outer world is through our senses. So it's possible to enter sensory conditions that you've never experienced before and get confused. So what. That's his subjective proof and nothing more.

He's saying, ultimately, that we experience time subjectively. Woop-dee-doo. We experience everything subjectively. And we will never know if that tree makes a sound, one way or the other.

Yes, it would be wonderful. I have to listen to what a wonderful world now. But wishful thinking on the part of anyone is not proof of anything.

Though, I do strongly respect the fact that he took the time to say he might be wrong. The same goes for me.

........I feel like you missed his point :O I honestly don't even know what parts of what he said you're talking about >.<

He's ultimately saying 'time doesn't exist, so let's try to work that into our calculations instead of just continuously using something that isn't even relevant to the actual universe.'

It's pretty much the LEAST subjective thing ever. In fact, he's trying to do AWAY with the subjection of time :O That was his point....

I don't get what trees falling have to do with much.

Did you finish the vid?

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

I think I get thewind's point. The professor was saying that time is relative to the observer (I agree) and if there is no one there to observe it doesn't exist (not so fast). So in essence he is saying is; if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear, it doesn't make a sound.

 

[Kevinaswell]

I think I get thewind's point. The professor was saying that time is relative to the observer (I agree) and if there is no one there to observe it doesn't exist (not so fast). So in essence he is saying is; if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear, it doesn't make a sound.

Well....

Those two ideas are not equivalent :O You cannot draw those parallels there >.<

A tree falling, the sound being created, are all functions of time. That 'tree falling' thought experiment is just pointing out that things don't happen when they aren't observed--but ONLY subjectively because no one will remember it. Outside of this, the tree DOES make a sound--it's just never heard. That's the only trick to that tree question.

But what this dude is saying about time....is that it's nothing at all in reality. Nothing. It's like the color blue--which is nothing more than subjective interpretation of a particular intensity of light. If he were talking about the tree and time in the same way, he would have said "THERE IS NO TREE-NO SOUND-NO ANYTHING YOU AREN'T EVEN ALIVE." which isn't where he went with it cuz that's silly.

If it's making you think of 'tree falling in the woods' kinda thing...I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions :O Or not thinking about it in the proper ways.

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

No I don't necessarily agree with the tree analogy, I just get where he was coming from. This takes relativity to another level.

Personally I think it places way too much importance on my place in the universe. Sort of like saying “I think, therefore you exist.” Does it apply to any living thing? If so what sets a living entity apart from a rock, we are both made up of atoms and molecules. Is it because I’m intelligent? If so what’s the threshold of intelligence and how would that effect anything?

OR

Everything is relative to the observer and without one nothing happens? So that super nova won’t happen if I’m not there to observe it? Or it will happen it just doesn’t take time? Huh?

 

[RedDeath9]

Actually, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, it makes vibrations, not a sound.

*looks around awkwardly, shuffles out of thread*

 

[Lucem]

Actually, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, it makes vibrations, not a sound.

*looks around awkwardly, shuffles out of thread*

What if there's a microphone nearby?:mellow:

 

[thewindlistens]

I think my analogy is sound. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? If nobody is in a forest to see the tree, does the tree exist? If nobody is in the universe to perceive time, does time exist?

We can't 'know' if time is or isn't relevant to the universe. His explanation of why it is not is, in all honesty, non sequitur to me. The biggest and the first I noticed was, what the hell does gravity have to do with anything???

Would aliens that evolved somewhere completely devoid of gravity be unable to tell time? Why? Their existence would be just as sequential as ours. They would be created, they would do the analogues of eating, sleeping, mating, whatever. And then they would die.




"Time becomes our fundemental reference. We are chronocentric." I don't really follow here either. I hold that our senses themselves are our most fundemental references for ANYTHING in the universe. Senses, of course, need space and time to function - but that falls under "universe."

"We even say the universe started 13.7 b years ago." Uh, yeah. We also say "That wall is 2 meters away from me." Because "Me" is the center of all we experience.

"With different grabity, different life can create different time." (What.) "They look very differently at the cosmos." There, you see? Look very differently at the cosmos. Everyone looks in their own way at everything. That's why experiences are subjective.

"Because we only look at the universe through our time, we only see a fraction of the universe." What's the difference between this and: Because we look at things through our own eyes, we only see a fraction of everything there is to see in the universe?

So, he's saying that aliens might live in a different time than we, and this is why we can't see each other. Oh, I agree completely with this. Because it's blatantly obvious. I can't see a person who left 5 minutes ago either. Yes, it would be marvelous to be a time traveller.

Then he explains his experience of going into space on a space shuttle. Yes, it must have been incredible and thought provoking. "Some of those programs, they don't work in space." Well, yeah. Duh, you're in a completely different enviroment to what you're used to. Someone who never went swimming and gets dumped into water would be equally confused.

So then he spins some blindfolded dude around who can't point at the ceiling and this is somehow proof that without gravity you can't tell time? What. Ever seen children playing this game with a blindfold and spinning? They can't tell which way they were pointing to a minute ago either. Because they're used to using sight to orient themselves.

Where the hell does gravity even enter the equation here? Seriously? I can't "What." enough.

Then he talks about the central nervous system contemplating km/h and k/h/s and how the nervous system makes time. Well... the central nervous system is what is actually experiencing anything. As we see it, it also makes space. And objects. Acceleration, speed. It makes everything. Because experiences are subjectively being made inside of our central nervous system.

Then he describes some optical illusions. These are connected to our sense of time, how exactly?

What if there's a microphone nearby?:mellow:

That counts as 'someone' being there to hear it.





All this is reminding me of an explanation of time as the fourth dimension I once read. How does a two dimensional being, shaped like a piece of paper, for example, experience three dimensional space? You move the paper through various things, and, sequentially, it will experience entire 3D objects. It will experience the movement itself as time and 2D cross sections of objects as units of time. How do we then, as 3D beings, experience a universe with more dimensions than 3? By moving through it - and we experience that movement as time.






But... None of that matters here. All that we experience we experience subjectively. We don't know if space really exists. We don't know if time really exists. And we can't find out.

Even "I think therefore I am." doesn't actually tell us anything beyond that "something" that seems to be "me" is "thinking." Whatever that means.

 

[murderegina]

I feel stupid for saying this...but it's the only response I have...



whoa.

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

Where the hell does gravity even enter the equation here?

Its part of the special theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation, and it's actually been proven with atomic clocks at differing altitudes.

 

[thewindlistens]

Its part of the special theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation, and it's actually been proven with atomic clocks at differing altitudes.

Yeah, OK, I understand that. I'm asking about HIS equation. Why someone isn't able to tell time while in a space shuttle, while he is perfectly able to tell time when on the ground. Why a race of living beings that evolved somewhere where there is no gravity would not be able to experience time.

 

[Aether]

I think my analogy is sound. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? If nobody is in a forest to see the tree, does the tree exist? If nobody is in the universe to perceive time, does time exist?

I disagree. If nobody is in the forest to see the tree, the tree or what we perceive to be a tree still exists. The point the guy was making is that time is made in our minds. Trees exist outside of our minds.

 

[thewindlistens]

Trees exist outside of our minds.

And where is your proof of this?

The point I was making is that everything we perceive, including our perception of trees, is made in our minds. Do trees exist outside our minds? Maybe. Maybe not. The same goes for time.

 

[thisisme]

it's really not about rather or not it actually makes a sound. the point is if no one observes it. did it happen? truth is what you know...right? things that occur without your knowing do not exist to you...that's true in so many ways.

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

What if there is a deer, rabbit, bug, worm or ameoba in the woods? So life defines the event? or.....

 

[Kevinaswell]

I disagree. If nobody is in the forest to see the tree, the tree or what we perceive to be a tree still exists. The point the guy was making is that time is made in our minds. Trees exist outside of our minds.

This is EXACTLY what he was saying!

And where is your proof of this?

The point I was making is that everything we perceive, including our perception of trees, is made in our minds. Do trees exist outside our minds? Maybe. Maybe not. The same goes for time.

This is exactly NOT what he was saying!

Time ONLY exists in our minds. There is no maybe maybe not.

 

[LostInMyOwnMind]

If you follow that thinking then if you were to kill me, strap my butt to a rocket and blast me to a planet a billion light years away and somehow revive me after landing. I would arrive when I left. That's hogwash, time doesn't exists "because" of me, it exists in "spite" of me. How me-centric can you get?