Why do people have such a problem understanding that time is a human invention and does not actually exist.?

Question

Clocks only measure movement. Time is always based on the movement of the Earth in relation to its axis and movement round the Sun. Speed is just a measurement of one moving body against another. Everything is always moving.

Answer 1

Most people have this problem because they are told to think a certain way and do it. Seldom thinking or questioning it.

It is easier to simply acknowledge it than question and discount it. We as humans have a tendency to categorize and measure things. We have over several thousand years created a measuring concept that is engrained into our culture and science. It exists to help explain things which are beyond the comprehension of the average person.

Answer 2

Because it doesn't make sense neither does your explanation, if clocks only measure movement as you say....and speed is just a measurement of one moving body against another then everything has time, since times is a measurement of movement when you accelerate between two bodies you create movement....if a body just stand in place, it move how so, the relation is it moves because time...because the earth moves and the universe expands and everything with in the universe moves around you creating unseen movement creating time....so wouldn't that be considered time according to your explanation.

Answer 3

Time is not merely a human invention.

A clock is an attempt to measure it's passing and quantify it.

You may as well say length is a human invention, as we made rulers to measure it.

The simplest way to explain this is to think about the speed of light.

Light always travels at the same speed (in a vacuum) 300000000 meters per second (ish) that is a constant, it does not change.

How could we measure it if we did not try to quantify time? How could we measure it if we didn't quantify the meter...

We couldn't.

So yes, the numbers associated with time are a human invention, just as the numbers associated with length are a human invention.

But time itself is real and there to be measured as is length.

If you want to talk about relativity that is a whole new can of worms and it becomes very important talking of the speed of light as a constant.

Two perfect mirrors one meter apart that are still with a laser bouncing between them.

Verses

Two perfect mirrors one meter apart that are moving close to the speed of light again with a laser bouncing between them.

Care full consideration of these two situations leads you to time dilation near the speed of light. i.e. the faster you move the slower time passes.

Too complicated to explain here but see the attached reference.

Answer 4

It might be because time travel is such a romantic concept.

It's like believing that Saddam had no WMD's. He was a megalomaniac who, by all pre-Bush accounts was obsessed with biological and chemical development, but as soon as a Republican sits in the Oval Office, Saddam is all of a sudden no danger to society!

We are a society of people in America who are too far away from real danger to have a mature view of it. We have far too much luxury time on our hands and whiddle it away by conjuring up entertaining new things to debate. That's why we have such a thriving tabloid industry.

Others like yourself who have a greater interest in studying the real world are easily perplexed by what may look like as self-induced ignorance. Don't let it get you down. Just be thankful you're not a member of the tabloid culture.

If time had anything to do with the intertwining suggested above, then why are we still on the Gregorian Calendar? Isn't science advanced enough to manipulate time material so that we can have regularly recurring 360-day years divisible in perfect 30-day intervals?

The reason why astrophysics has no ability to even approach the idea of the non-existance of time is simple: our calendars measure the movement of the sun and moon and the earth around the sun. It has nothing to do with the "space-time" continuum. It's just a tool.

Answer 5

Time exists - because every particle has a lifetime - the proton is one of the most longlived particles. By way of radioactive decay , although this cannot be measured directly as per the proton - only inferred from observation.

Its likely time has always existed and always will - the space we live in is proof of time as we are encapsualted in space and time and every one carries their own time with them. We could not of invented time as life itself has a definition of time - age - all creatures are born and die - some may do so over many years whilst others in seconds.

When you say everything is moving - yes thats true but only relatively - as a point of reference an object can remain motionless but only as observed from another point which may be moving at the same relative velocity as the 1st object. I.e 2 space ships travelling at 10,000 km/s - when viewed from each other would appear to be motionless. This is what is being discussed in relativity.

Answer 6

There are real philosophical problems with the word "exists".

Why do you have this problem only with time? Space is equally real/unreal. Everything in space---particles, strings, branes, whatever have a similar amount of problematic external reality.

In physics, time is defined so that motion looks simple. Time and space are made of similar "stuff" (whatever that is), in the sense that one person's time can be, in part, another person's space. If you enter a Black Hole, for example, your "future time" direction tilts over (compared to someone outside) and points at the singularity. The space between two things is no less real or illusory than the time between two events.

Consider, however, pulsars. They are among the most accurate clock's we've got---a whole star, rotating several times a second: tick, tick, tick, for millions of years. Unless your philosophy is totally non-materialist, they will do this whether there are humans to observe them or not, and they are an example of a "time-like" phenomenon that is external and objective.

Answer 7

well our notion of time i.e. clocks certainly is an invention
however time does exist, as einstein said it is relative to the speed some one is travelling. the faster you go the more time will go for you relative to an observer.
for example if you were standing on a platform and a train came racing along and you looked into the train the people inside would appear to be moving slower than if you were inside the train.

Answer 8

This is a bit of solipsism, eh?

How do, or could you know that time did not exist before humanity came onto the scene?

According to any cosmological theory, time as a concept, however defined, existed before the earth was even a blip in the mind of god.

So what makes you, or anyone think that we humans are so special that we invented time?

It's like saying matter and energy did not exist before the human mind preceived them.

Sheesh!

Answer 9

Time. In two different ways was either just there, or invented by us humans. How to tell time was an invention of ours. Time however was something that was just there. You're right that time never stops. There would still be time even if there was no sun or moon. It just wouldn't really be needed. It's just something that's always been there. Again I say, how to tell time was an invention by us.

Answer 10

Time exists and seconds, minutes, hours, days are the divisions we developed to measure the passing of time.

It would be interesting to find an undiscovered people and see if they measure time in a different way.