What is time?

Question

Can it be defined? Does it only go foward...or is this only our perception and understanding of "time"? Surely, we know the Earth's orbit about the sun comprises our 24 day, seasons, and such. But, what is time itself? What was it before we could track it, to the best of our finite abilities? Was it anything? Or is time just a concept we have created as humans to make us feel more in control of the sphere we occupy in physical form?

Meant to say, 24 hour day. Sorry.

So Ronin, time is a chronology? That makes no sense.

Answer 1

a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.

Obviously divisions of time are man-made. As for time itself, of course it exists independently of human sense. Otherwise, humans could have formed at all stages of the development of the universe (or none) if there were nothing "ordering" it.

Answer 2

Well when we talk about the universe we always talk about time and sapce begin one. One together. I think time was here ever since the big bang. It has to be because when we use stuff like relativity time is usually involved to measure periods of how long it takes light to get from one place to another. Time has always been here.

Answer 3

it`s in the human`s mind, it`s a way to understand how we spend our lifes and how some changes accure.
It`s more philopshy than science. It`s more a need than a fact, it`s more the imagination than the reality.
There is a way to regulate our bilogical cycles, our life rythm and a way to measure our performances.