Time is what is not

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Modern philosophical science defines space and time as universal forms of existence, coordination of objects. Space has three dimensions: length, width and height, and time is only one - the direction from the past through the present to the future. Space and time exist objectively, outside and independently of consciousness.

According to this definition, time is another form of the existence of objects. Second form.

But could there be a second form of existence? Can a piece of wood exist both in the shape of a chair and at the same time in the shape of a table?

The wording also does not clarify the issue: time has only one dimension - this is the direction from the past through the present to the future.

What is the future? The future is surreal, it does not exist in reality, it is an image.

The present is also conditional, and may be somewhere at the junction between the future and the past, with zero coordinates.

The past is something that no longer exists, it is more of a symbol, the same image. All these concepts have no physical meaning, which casts doubt on the very concept of time as a form of the existence of matter.

In science, experience is the main argument. Who and when set up experiments proving the existence of time in nature?

It seems that no one did this, fearing to be in the role of a man looking for a black cat in a dark room, where it may not be. We will try to clarify this problem with some examples.

The movement of the earth in time

Everything in nature moves and constantly changes. The planet Earth, having passed a segment of the path in its orbit, not only changes its coordinates in space, but also changes itself. It becomes different.

Having mentally fixed the Earth at any point, we will not get it the same at any other point. Therefore, can we say that the Earth has passed such and such a segment of the way for such and such a time when "that" Earth is no longer there?

We cannot return to the "yesterday" of the Earth, not because time has one direction, but because the "yesterday" Earth is no longer there. She, like everything in nature, is constantly changing.

Day and night. Seasons

An observer in mid-latitudes on Earth sees day and knows that it was night a few hours ago. From his experience, he makes the logical conclusion that after a few hours the night will come again.

From this, he concludes that the events occurring are periodic and that they exist in time. Also for him periodically there are summer and spring, winter and autumn in time.

But if this observer is placed in a spaceship orbiting the Sun, then he will not observe the change of day and night. He will always have day on the side of the ship facing the Sun, and night on the opposite side. In this case, the frequency disappears.

Being at the equator of the Earth, the observer will not be able to determine the changes of the seasons. There are none at the equator.

It follows that the frequency of day and night, as well as the seasons, cannot serve as a confirmation of the objectively existing time.

Sound

Sound is a very convincing confirmation of the existence of absolute time. It exists for a long time, from appearance to extinction. From which it is concluded that sound exists in time.

Sound appears when a substance vibrates (string, etc.) and propagates in wave vibrations of air.

Sound exists in gaseous media, water and solids in the form of weak mechanical disturbances. Subjectively assessing the duration of the sounding process, we identify it with time.

On the nearest neighbor of the Earth, the Moon, there is no air, there is no sound there. There is no sound anywhere in the universe. Therefore, hearing a sound in the air while on Earth, it is logical, but subjective, to conclude that sound exists in time.

Nature

It is well known that all life on Earth lives and develops in time. Everything has its beginning and end. Grain planted in the ground germinates and develops. How long did it take for the sprout to reach maturity?

Nature does not pose the question that way. All living things grow and develop in accordance with the laws of living nature. It is impossible to separate the period from the moment of planting the grain to its ripening from the general process of life and assume that this period is time.

This period is part of the general process of the Earth's development, soil maturation, planting of grain, its ripening. The grain will then fall into the ground and give new life, and so on without end.

And here the concept of time looks subjective. The delusion is that the development process is isolated and identified with time.

Clock

Richard Feynman (1918-1988), American theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics adhered to the definition: time is just a clock.

"Moscow time is 12 o'clock, - we hear on the radio, - in Novosibirsk it is 16 o'clock, in Vladivostok it is 19". The Japanese have only five hours difference with Moscow in Tokyo. It's more convenient for them.

What is this absolute concept of Time, with which one can so freely handle? Let's look for an answer to this question. To do this, let's make an experiment. Mentally.

Let's imagine that we are in a stadium and see how an athlete ran a hundred meters in 11 seconds. In the second race, he improved his result to 10.5 seconds. What happened?

Here's what happened: the second time the athlete ran faster, and the time of his race was reduced. Time is a secondary value, time depends on how fast the athlete ran and the distance.

Let's leave the concept of absolute time alone for now, and we ourselves will return to everyday time, which is convenient for understanding. Its appearance in the mind of a person goes back centuries, it is comfortable with him, and mankind has always tried to keep him under control.

All kinds of devices were invented and built: solar, water and hourglasses, pendulum clocks with a weight. A spring clock, a chronometer, a stopwatch and, finally, electronic and atomic clocks were invented. And they all replace us with something that does not exist in nature.

In Russia there was no concept of time. They said: let's meet for two bast shoes. This is when your shadow is equal to the length of your two bast shoes. Moreover, people of different heights and the length of the bast shoes are different, but proportional to its height. It turned out quite accurately, but only in sunny weather.

From the past to the future

Speaking about time, it is good to remember the words from the song: "… There is only a moment, between the past and the future …" - a moment is nothing. Strictly speaking, there is no real, it does not exist. The future is constantly flowing into the past. In the present, in this moment, in this nothingness, there is time, or rather the illusion of the existence of time.

If we define time as a concept that embraces the past and the future, then it consists of the past, which no longer exists, and the future, which does not yet exist. In this case, time consists of two quantities that do not exist. Therefore, there is no whole.

Time is near?

Time exists always and everywhere. Time created by the human mind surrounds us from all sides: in everyday life, in science, art, philosophy.

In a philosophical understanding of the existence of matter, we agree that one of the smallest particles of matter - an atom, moves slowly in space and that movement and space, speed and distance determine time.

But then a counterargument arises from the subconscious: everything exists in time! Time always exists! And unconsciously, time becomes some kind of supra-dimensional formation, time becomes a kind of all-consuming monster and only because the subconscious is overflowing with time.

It is also impossible to assume that time exists in parallel with space because space is infinite. Nothing, including time, can exist "next to" space.

Airplane

An airplane roared in the sky. An observer on the ground believes that while the plane was flying from one point in the sky to another, time had passed. This is the normal day-to-day assessment of an event.

The root cause of this event was the Reason, which created the aircraft, airfields and ground services. The plane was created for transportation. While he is standing on the ground, there is no time for him.

When the plane picks up speed and takes off, the so-called flight time will depend on the speed and the distance traveled by the plane. Time is a derivative quantity. First there was speed, speed.

Big Bang

If we consider the hypothesis of the Big Bang, as a result of which the Universe appeared, then the question arises: when did time appear? Before the explosion, at the moment of the explosion, or when did Homo sapiens appear, a thinking person? The creators of the hypothesis do not give an answer.

A thinking person asks the question: if Time once appeared, then in the form of what? And with what properties?

We may be told that Time is the interval between two events. But this gap appears only as a result of human comprehension of it. If we do not fix them in our consciousness, then objectively events are spaced apart with irreversible motion of matter.

Time appears in our minds. And our consciousness replaces the irreversibility of the movement of matter - with the passage of time, believing that this is the property of Time.

No less interesting is the theory of an anisotropic Universe, according to which matter contracts and expands in different parts of the Universe.

Confirmation of shrinking matter can be black holes in which space and time are shrinking. As a consequence, a thesis appears about the change in the direction of time: in a black hole, it becomes the opposite.

In time with a changed direction, the subsequent event must occur earlier than the previous one. Figuratively speaking, under the influence of time in a black hole one can see how a deceased person comes to life, how he gets younger and returns to where he was born.

Thus, one can question the entire harmonious theory of an anisotropic Universe, if one does not take into account the illusory nature of the existence of time.

Foucault's pendulum

The pendulum, making oscillatory movements, very clearly illustrates the presence of objectively existing time. Being at the extreme point, it seems to freeze, and then moves to its other extreme point.

He moves in space and time. The pendulum needs time to travel from one extreme point to another.

Moreover, if we look at the Foucault pendulum, we will see a graphic representation of time in the form of stripes left in the sand by a metal rod, fixed on the ball of the pendulum.

Each subsequent strip is slightly rotated in relation to the previous strip. The ends of these strips are located at some distance from each other. This is clearly visible to any observer.

But if this observer wants to share his discovery with us and sends us to Moscow, then when we arrive at St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, where the pendulum is located, the pendulum will hang motionless there, and we will see that time has stopped!

If the pendulum is placed on any cosmic body, the effect will be the same: the pendulum will stop, and not only because there is air resistance on Earth, but also because there is friction, gravity, and a perpetual motion machine cannot exist.

At the household level

The man sat down on the sofa, watched TV and got up from the sofa. Time has passed between "sat down" and "got up", the person believes. He went out into the street and crossed to the other side. While he was crossing the street, time passed, the man reasons.

A person unconsciously splits the continuous process of life into separate events and perceives the interval between them as time.

All processes, from the smallest ones occurring in human life, to global ones, such as solar flares, exist regardless of time. Having discovered two solar flares, we perceive the gap between them as time.

Unconsciously separating the interval between flares from the entire process of the existence of the Sun, we fall into the illusion of the existence of time.

From part to whole

Our thought processes involuntarily set milestones, landmarks. A person cannot cover everything at once. We see a large building, and our eyes begin to slide over its details. By these details, we judge the building as a whole. And here lies the possibility of error.

Upon closer inspection, the building may turn out to be a props made at a cinema factory. You can't live in this model. Generalizing on the details can lead to erroneous conclusions about the whole.

Collapsing and scattering Galaxies have been discovered in world space. After the compression, an explosion probably occurs and a new star appears, and the expansion process is in progress. Another one appears in another place, and we conclude that one star appeared earlier, and the other later in time.

In fact, the contraction and expansion processes take place all the time. They are numerous and do not match in amplitude. Otherwise, the universe would be homogeneous.

Having set milestones at the moments of the discovery of new stars, we succumb to the illusion of time in which their appearance is spaced apart and, generalizing, we say that the stars themselves and the Galaxies exist in time.

Pipe

An oil pipeline several hundred kilometers long was built in Siberia. Oil was pumped into it. It will take a long time for oil to reach the other end of the pipeline. We say that it will take a while for the oil to reach the consumer. Here is the argument for the existence of time. But let's not rush.

Time in our case is characterized by a delay between the moment the pump is turned on and the appearance of oil at the other end of the pipe. What caused this delay?

First, let's answer the question of what caused the oil pumping. The Root Cause was the Reason that created the transfer pump, pipes and related equipment. When the pump started to work, oil, due to its viscosity, could not immediately appear at the other end of the pipe.

If gas were pumped into the same pipe, it would travel the same distance faster. In a fiberglass cable, light would cover this distance almost instantly. Oil retention is caused by viscosity, friction in the pipe, turbulence and similar objective reasons.

Other things being equal, the transit time for different substances through our pipe is different, but we add that the time is measured, not absolute.

The process of pumping oil exists objectively, but if you mentally remove the pipe from this process, the motivation for waiting, and with it time, will disappear.

Newton about time

Isaac Newton in his 1687 "Mathematical Principles" distinguishes:

1. Absolute, true, mathematical time, otherwise called duration.

2. Relative, apparent or ordinary, time is a measure of duration used in everyday life: hour, day, month, year.

Let us emphasize: absolute mathematical time does not exist in nature. The mathematics created by the human mind is only a display of nature in scalar, numerical values. Comprehending the first definition of Newton, one must not fall into a logical trap: time is absolute and … the second definition of Newton's time escapes attention. In fact, the second definition swallows the first.

In theoretical developments, we always fall into the "Newtonian trap" and talk about time as something really existing.

The movement of matter is characterized by rapidity. If it is necessary to compare the speed of movement of two bodies, it is necessary to determine the same segments of the path for them and introduce some general conditional value comparable to the rhythmic natural processes.

The diurnal rotation of the Earth is usually used. One 1440th part is a minute. This is that conditional value (time), with the help of which one can compare the speed of movement of our investigated bodies.

For convenience, we divide the path by time and get the speed. But dividing the path by time is the same absurdity from the point of view of mathematics as dividing okroshka not into portions, but into bicycles.

The philosopher Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that time as such does not exist at all, that it is only one of the forms of human perception of the surrounding world, the so-called relational.

A person comes into the world, into a society with well-established traditions and postulates. From childhood, a person absorbs the concepts that exist in society. It is psychologically difficult for him to question seemingly obvious truths. But between the "apparent" and the truth there is a huge distance.

The great illusion of time is hidden in everyday consciousness and extends to the greatest minds of science.

P. S.: I hear the voice of a reader: "So I read your article. But from the beginning to the end of reading time has passed ! The beginning of reading and the end is not an instant. There was a gap between them, for a while. The kettle is already boiling. He needed time for the water to boil."

What can you answer to this? It is very difficult for a person to abandon the consciousness that there is no time in nature. While you were reading the article, there was no time, it did not manifest itself in any way, and as soon as you wondered about time, it appeared in your mind.

Your mother slept behind the wall, and for her this was not your time. But as soon as she woke up and said - "How long I slept, it's time to get up" - the concept of time also appeared in her mind. His own.

Objectively, you and your mother lived in accordance with nature. But as soon as you began to evaluate the events taking place, the concept of time appeared in your mind. Only with you and only in connection with the events of interest to you.

Well, figure it out with the kettle yourself or read the article from the beginning.

Literature:

A. G. Spirkin, Philosophy, 2001, pp. 253-254.

V. S. Soloviev, "Time", Article.

I. Newton "Mathematical principles", Instruction, 1687

A. Einstein, Theory of Relativity, 1905-1916

A. N. Vasilevsky, 1996. The theory of illusionary art, p. 211.

Time in the universe

Before embarking on the creation of any theory of the universe, it is necessary to determine the concepts that create the foundation of this theory. Without a clear definition of the initial and boundary conditions, a full-fledged theory cannot be created.

Let's first define what time is. For a long time, time was recognized as absolute and only in the twentieth century, when creating his theory, Einstein proposed the idea of the relative nature of time and introduced time as the fourth dimension.

But before defining the absolute or relative nature of time, it is necessary to define - what is time ?! For some reason, everyone forgot that time is a conditional value introduced by man himself and does not exist in nature.

In nature, there are periodic processes that a person uses as a standard for coordinating his actions with those around him. In nature, there are processes of transition of matter from one state or form to another. These processes are faster or slower, and they are real and material.

The processes of the transition of matter from one state to another, from one quality to another, continuously occur in the Universe, and they can be reversible and irreversible. Reversible processes do not affect the qualitative state of matter. If there is a qualitative change in matter, irreversible processes are observed. With such processes, the evolution of matter goes in one direction - from one quality to another, and therefore it is possible to quantify these phenomena.

Thus, in nature, there are processes of change in matter, proceeding in one direction. There is a kind of "river" of matter, which has its origins and mouth. Matter taken from this "river" has a past, present and future.

The past is the qualitative state of matter that it had before, the present is the qualitative state at the moment, and the future is the qualitative state that this matter will assume after the destruction of the existing qualitative state.

The irreversible process of qualitative transformation of matter from one state to another proceeds at a certain speed. At different points in space, the same processes can proceed at different rates, and, in some cases, it varies over a fairly wide range.

To measure this speed, a person came up with a conditional unit, which was called a second. Seconds merged into minutes, minutes - into hours, hours - into days, etc. The unit of measurement was the periodic processes of nature, such as the daily rotation of the planet around its axis and the period of the planet's revolution around the Sun. The reason for this choice is simple: ease of use in everyday life. This unit of measurement was called the unit of time and began to be used everywhere.

An interesting fact is that many peoples, initially isolated from each other, created very close calendars, which could differ in the number of days in a week, the beginning of a new year, but the length of the year was very close to each other. It was the introduction of a conventional unit of time that allowed humanity to organize its activities and simplify interaction between people.

The unit of time is one of the greatest inventions of man, but one must always remember the initial fact: it is an artificially created quantity that describes the speed of the qualitative transition of matter from one state to another.

In nature, there are periodic processes that served as the basis for the creation of this conventional unit. These periodic processes are objective and real, and units of time created by man are conventional and unreal.

Therefore, any use of time as a real dimension of space has no basis at all. The fourth dimension - the dimension of time - simply does not exist in nature. It is the everyday life and ubiquity of the use of time units that accompany a person from the first moment of his life to the last that very often create the illusion of the reality of time.

In reality, not time, but the processes occurring in matter, the unit of measurement of which is the unit of time. There is a subconscious substitution of one for the other and, as an inevitable result of such a substitution of the real process by the unit of its measurement - the fusion of one with the other in human consciousness - played a cruel joke on Homo Sapiens.

Theories of the universe began to be created, in which time was accepted as an objective reality. The objective reality is the processes taking place in matter, and not a conventional unit for measuring the rate of these processes.

In other words, a subjective value was mistakenly introduced into the initial and boundary conditions for the creation of theories of the universe. And this subjective value, with the development of these theories of the universe, became one of the "pitfalls" against which these theories of the universe "crashed".

Fragment from the book of the Russian scientist Nikolai Levashov "Inhomogeneous Universe"