I have a different view on time. Many people cal time the "fourth" dimension. I think of it as a separate dimension form the first three.
1st dimension: represents possibility existence (a single point)
2nd dimension: defines existence because of the existence of points on a single plane. This is possibly because there are other points to verify existence. Although the 1st point cannot prove it's self, if can affect the other point (direction of the line because of position of the point) which therefor proves that the other point does exist. Something exists.
3rd dimension: something we call "mass". on a single plane, items can theoretically exist, but cannot have a physical quantity. Introducing this dimension makes objects touchable, even if it is very thin.
But 4th? Time has no correlation, it is an entity entirely separate. Without time, the first three dimensions can't exist, because the idea of "existence" has no 'time' to take place.

I believe that time is recursive. Everything must have a beginning and an end. Infinity does too, it's just that the beginning/end will a) never be reached or b) have no effect once reached. The 'b' method comes from [reimann plane] (not sure of the name..). The plane is circular, and defines infinity and negative infinity as a point opposite to 0. Infinity and negative infinity are the same point.
Think of time in 2 pieces:
time originates in box #1. nothing is in box #2 (box #2 is "the future")
time moves to box #2. the present time is box #2, the past is box #1, the future is box #1
time moves to box #1 again. the present time is in box #1, the past is box #2, the future is box #2.
etc.

of course, this means that time will replace each box, every time. [the 2 box theory is a simplified version]. [note duration is a quantity of time, like year, second, nanosecond, etc]
if (limit as X approaches 0. X is the duration of time) then (Y is the number of "boxes". the limit of Y approaches infinity)


But where is the beginning/end?
We create simple "for loops" in programming. If we choose to make an "infinite for loop", the loop will continue till we stop it (of the computer breaks). However, if we assume that will not degrade/break, then the loop will continue till the creator terminates it. (god or just the possible % chance that time was created in the first place). It is infinite in the sense that if left untouched, it will continue for ever, but not in the sense that at one time it did not exist, and that one day, it could stop. Then again, with no time, existence is not defined, and there for nothing exists, including infinity. So when time starts, infinity begins. When time ends, infinity halts. So if time ever stopped or paused, no one would ever know, as nothing would be affected by it.

*my belief on time*

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 21 2010, 5:30 pm by fat_flying_pigs.

My belief in time. Since you can express time in a 2 dimensional line, it gets simpler.
Time can have 4 possibilities.
1) Time is a straight line of no beginning, and no end.
2) Time is a straight line with a beginning, but no end.
3) Time is a straight line with a end, and no beginning.
4) Time has a beginning and an end.
5) Time is a loop, like a circle in the two dimensional expression of time. (This is actually another expression for no end and no beginning)
All of these can be expressed in two dimension.
But of course, geometrically- you can express more in the 4th dimensional 'surface'.

Using geometry/Cartesian coordinate/graph/x,y,z axis representation of time makes a shift in the graph. ie: f(x-1) or f(x)-1
"Surface" represents the 2nd dimension.

Say you had a circle, moving the circle over to the right (limit of X->∞ for "1/x") is a shift in time, and can represent a single instance of time.

Like position, time is entirely relative, so far as we can measure. There is no definition of absolute time; we can only say that one event occurred separated from another by a given interval of time (in a certain reference frame). Thus the idea of a "beginning" or "end" of time is disingenuous, since we simply use time as a method of describing the order of events we perceive.

Time is only a "fourth dimension" as a mathematical construct for making things easier to calculate, such as position and velocity four-vectors, their scalar products, and the lambda matrix (Lorentz transformation). See Vrael's post for more.

Time is a describing characteristic, quantified in terms of the unit of measurement time or date. This concept would be useless if anything could not be described in some form. (Oh were sorry, this event has no date, because it is outside the boundary of time.) The concept of time is therefore infinite.

Which makes the question, I presume, is the universe infinite. This seems to be the case.

That doesn't make sense. Just because we can't attribute the quality of "justice" or "intelligence" to a chair or desk doesn't mean that the concepts justice and intelligence are useless. By comparison, just because an event can not be described by time does not mean that time is useless either, and it certainly doesn't imply that time is infinite.

THe beginning of time is rather unclear for we don't know what existed before the big bang I doubt nothing exploded and created everything something had to exist before us. Thusly time in this perspective has infinite beginnings but it will always end in the same way. Our universe might just implode upon itself one day and another big bang occur restarting the cycle.

What I know about time is that whatever you see is already in the past. If you see a star explodes in outer space while you are viewing it on planet Earth, the star exploding had already happened. Except that it took thousands of light-years to travel to planet Earth, and then you see the star exploding once the light reaches to planet Earth. If there is a conversation between you and I face to face, we are looking at the past between each other. Whatever you say, it's already to the past and it immediately travels to me in a very, very short time. When I respond back, whatever I said would be in the past at your perspective. The thing is, you don't notice it and it happens fast, unless you are light-years away.

Take the moon for example, an astronaut talking to a NASA scientist back on planet Earth would have some form of delay. Even if it's just a simply conversation of "Hello" and "How are you doing?"


And damnit Kemuel, stop reviving inactive topics.

For me, the biggest pitfall about time is that time is relative.

What is time for me can be different for you.

And because of this, whether it is infinite or finite... it's hard to say. Simply because I think that referring time as an entity is erroneous.

Are you sure? What if one's perception of time is modified, not the actual time elapsed. How would you go about measuring the relative change between two bodies or systems? I don't recall time being relative proven with a physical test, yet.

I can see how you concluded that time has infinite beginnings, assuming there has always been matter. Although, I don't see how you can conclude that "it" will always end in the same way. I don't even know what the "it" is you are referring to.

Erm ... Einstein's Theory of Relativity is pretty solid...
What I'm saying is Time is perceptive.. and, as I've said before, thinking of time as an entity of itself is wrong. (at least that's what I feel)

If time is a loop time will end the way time began. Time will flow till time hits the point where everything goes back to the big bang.
Thats of course assuming that time loops. If time doesn't then there are infinite ways that time could come to an end.

Well i'm going on the basis that matter can't really be created or destroyed so it had to come from somewhere. If matter didn't always exist that implies that something created matter before existence came to be.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Sep 15 2010, 5:40 pm by Kemuel.

Sorry

Despite what he said, there is nothing wrong with posting in an old topic in SD, so long as you plan on posting contributively and have something to actually discuss, and not just because you want to reignite some old argument or defend some viewpoint because the last post in the thread was contrary to your stance.

You should take the time to articulate your thoughts more clearly. From what I see, you're making conjectures about the nature of time based only on your "doubt" that "nothing exploded and created everything." Perhaps you'd like to clarify your meaning.

Just because you can conclude that the universe has always had matter, and therefore doesn't have a set beginning, doesn't mean that it loops. Actually, those two ideas have nothing to do with each other, so I still don't know why you concluded that time ends in the same way every time it ends. I'm going to have to say you commit the Slippery Slope Fallacy.

You should take a look at Stephen Hawking's new book, The Grand Design. He states that God is not needed for the creation of the universe.

Sigh I'm not concluding that time loops because of existence of matter I said IF time loops that it will end the way it began.

If time loops existence will collapse in upon itself and the big bang will reoccur. This also implies that everything that has happened in our history and the history of the universe that remains unknown to us will just happen over and over again. As I said this is assuming that time loops. I never said that it does loop nor that the existence of matter proves that time loops.

Also who cares if a God created the universe or not the universe is created of matter which would have had to exist before the universe unless the big bang came of nothing and created something from nothing.

EDIT:
Also lets stay on the topic of time lets not argue about how matter may or may not have come into existence.

To understand time you must beable to view time from another view point rather than being inside of it. We only see time from a first person perspective so the concept of time is hard to grasp without viewing it from another angle.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 17 2010, 12:24 am by NudeRaider. Reason: merged posts

There are many concepts of time, most of which we are familiar with, since we can directly observe the ticking of a clock. There can be properties of time as a physical concept that we may not be familiar with, similar to how incredibly unbelievable Einstein's papers were, but to understand those properties we would use the same tools we've used to understand everything else that we know, mostly our brain and the experiments it comes up with. There is no such thing as "viewing time from another view point" since we are physically limited to existing within time. There is nothing wrong with making conjectures about the nature and properties of time, but rather than pretending time is some weirdness which requires other dimensional intelligence to understand, we should make conjectures based on what we can observe and do already know.

Alright, I'm tired of you people ignoring me.
Srsly, I've said this for the third time now. TIME IS RELATIVE, MEANING THAT OTHER'S PERCEPTION OF TIME IS DIFFERENT FROM YOURS!!!
This means that thinking of TIME As an ENTITY is WRONG.

Let's play Skullfuck here.
Time is when a person perceives something, and event, that happened and how long it has happened for. As long as a person perceives an event of some sort that isn't instantaneous or w/e ... they can perceive this as time.
However, since object movements are RELATIVE, then Time iS RELATIVE.

here's an interesting anecdote
The Third(?)Second Law of Thermodynamics say that heat will be lost in every system as Entropy. meaning that, one day, in the far far far future, everything will cool down and stop. When that happens, no events will occur. Does that mean that's the end of time? ??!?!?!

For velocities far from the speed of light, time is perceived approximately equal for those velocities. There is no sense in saying time is relative to the observer unless the observers are moving at drastically (with respect to the speed of light) different speeds. Stop freaking out, we all perceive time approximately equally. At the least, we perceive time with too little difference to call it relative. Even if the observer moves at velocities high enough to matter, we can calculate the amount of time that will pass for him in a given time interval for us, the slow moving people. "TIME As an ENTITY" is not "WRONG" In relativity theory Time is a component of the space-time interval, an entity just as important as the distance. In normal space-independant-of-time approximations like in newtonian mechanics, the error due to velocity dependance is so small its not worth considering. Lets not play skullfuck, and lets accurately describe the ideas which we wish to convey.