What is time?

Question

have you ever had deja vu, thought about it and found an answer?

Answer 1

Time has been studied by philosophers and scientists for 2,500 years, and thanks to this attention it is much better understood today. Nevertheless, many issues remain to be resolved.

Here is a short list of the most important ones—what time actually is; whether time exists when nothing is changing; what kinds of time travel are possible; why the time dimension has an arrow but a space dimension does not; whether the future and past are real; how to analyze the metaphor of time's flow; whether the future will be infinite; whether there was time before the Big Bang; whether tensed or tenseless concepts are semantically basic; what is the proper formalism or logic that captures the special role that time plays in reasoning; and what are the neural mechanisms that account for our experience of time. Some of these issues will be resolved by scientific advances alone, but others require philosophical analysis.
Philosophers of time are deeply divided on the question on what sort of ontological differences there are among the present, past and future. Presentists argue that necessarily only present objects and present experiences are real; and we conscious beings recognize this in the special "vividness" of our present experience. The growing-universe theory is that the past and present are both real, but the future is not yet real. The more popular alternative theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past and future. This view is called "eternalism" or "the block universe theory."

This raises the issue of tenseless versus tensed theories of time. Eternalism or the block universe theory implies a tenseless theory. The earliest version of this theory implied that tensed terminology (such as "will win" within the sentence "The Lakers will win the basketball game") is not semantically basic, but instead is analyzable into tenseless terms (such as "does win at time t" and "happens before" and "is simultaneous with"). Once all tenseless facts are fixed, all tensed facts are thereby fixed. Later versions of the tenseless theory do not imply that tensed terminology is removable or reducible, but only that the truth conditions of tensed remarks can be handled with tenseless facts. On the other hand, advocates of a tensed theory of time say that tenseless terminology is not semantically basic but should be analyzed in tensed terms, and that tensed facts are needed to make the tensed statements be true. For example, a tensed theory might imply that the world involves irreducible tensed properties such as presentness or now-ness or being-in-the-present, and no adequate account of the present tensed fact that it's now midnight can be given without these tensed properties. So, the philosophical debate is over whether tensed concepts have semantical priority over untensed concepts, and whether tensed facts have ontological priority over untensed facts.

Answer 2

My daughter and boyfriend deep in conversation over this very thing the other day and it was debated that deja vu is something to do with short term and long term memory that overlap. I could not get into the deep level of A Level student debate on all this being a mere mom but got the jist just about. LOL

Answer 3

Time??? is it not what happens between the moment one is born and the other, you know, moment?.

Besides, it never stops until it does ( that's when, you know, one dies)
Kidding aside, time is a commodity, a very valuable one, maybe the most valuable,and one spends it indiscriminately.
That means one wastes this commodity. Many wise ones spend it on their loved ones and on profitable enterprises.
One can't save time neither in a bottle nor in a bank.
Some say "I'm buying time" but alas, is the other way around it's wasting time.
If one sees time in this fashion, it becomes a powerful tool for decision making.
Time is life being spent, so one must spend it wisely.
It's a hard thing learning to spend time wisely, one needs a lot of time to really learn the "Art of spending time in a wise way".
That's what time is to me. ( in this lines I "invested" a little time, to unwind, and the yield is still to be collected) Did I make any sense to you??
As for deja vu, momof3 has the correct explanation, about overlapping short-long term memory, although many people would like it to be " a past life experience" alas, there is no such experience, as I said,momof3 is correct, good for you mother of 3.

Answer 4

Your question is kinda difficult, what is time? The other part, deja vu, don't know what you are looking for, but for me it usually occurs when something more significant than the usual "mundane events" of a day is happening.

Answer 5

deja vu is one side of the brain working a little slower than the other. this causes you to already experience something by the time the other side does.

Answer 6

Time is a concept. We have an idea of what it is but if measured can we ever get a true answer. To one person 10 minutes can fly past and to others it may be an eternity.

Answer 7

Time is a measurement. What we do with it depends on the
individual. Time can be measured in the past, present and in the
future. Basically, Time is what we use to measure our days,
minutes and seconds for existence.

Answer 8

those things are not real , just deja vus.

Answer 9

Yes I've had it many times and yes I've thought about it. I think the answer may lie in re-incarnation, if you believe in this. I can't really see any other answer.

Answer 10

Time is means to measure the separation of events.