Re: What is time?

Here's more fuel for the fire;

I think the concept of time is deeply tied with our conscious awareness -
Imagine a universe without any lifeforce to acknowledge (conscious awareness) its existence: is the concept of time still present in this case? In other words do we need an observer to identify that the universe is following the entropy law and the progression of time is taking place?

Much like the quantum mechanics or psychoenergetics studies are showing us, our own awareness and intentions shape the universe and are constantly affecting its nature, so how can we make a valid and true observation of the nature of time (as separate and distinct variant) when everything in the universe (including ourselves) is intrinsically connected?

There seems to be also the concept of relativity connected with measurement of time; Einstein showed us that a person traveling close to speed of light and person grounded on earth are at 2 completely different time scales and if these two people were to meet, the person who was traveling near light speed would be physically younger (yet their individual conscious awareness of time remained unchanged).

Even those instances where 2 people at some event might have two completely different views on the passage of time may show the fluidity or illusive nature of measuring time (if one is bored time may seem to drag).

When we are born, apparently we don't know or feel the concept of time until we are able to store memories (around 3 years old?) Clearly our parents were able to notice the passage of time when we were born because they can compare and contrast their moment of "now" agaisnt their past memories - but when were just a few weeks old we may not have the concept of past or future, we only experience the now. And that may be because our brain is not fully developed and not capable of making those judgements.
If we weren't able to store memories or rationally extrapolate the future, then would it mean we lose the measure of time? We would only experience the now , and wouldn't have the capability of measuring the progression time (does that mean that time ceases to exist for us?)
Somewhere down the line we began abusing our rational ability to (often times incorrectly) extrapolate the future based on past events (distorted memories stored in the brain) and no longer able to experience the moment of now. (but that's another story).

Looking at time based on a purely physical aspect won't be able to extract much on its nature (since it may not be a true dimension). In fact it seems just a simple measure to track entropy and not really a physical component. It is very tightly connected with multidimensional space. If you were to ask me what this weird spacetime fabric is indeed, I would tell you that it is the elusive "fog of energy" that has been eluding scientists (or dark matter). This spacetime fabric is also gravitation affected as seen by black holes studies. Black holes (massive gravitational fields) are not only able to distort the fabric of spacetime (sending ripples) but indeed are "vacuuming" spacetime - dark matter itself. Dark matter seems to fill every nook and crany of the universe yet it has no apparent connection with the larger physical particles.

The event horizon area near the black hole is perfect example for this, where everything appears to "freeze in time" (where nothing can scape the black hole's gravitational field) - at this stage there is nothingness - its like a punctured hole in the spacetime fabric and everything is draining out of it (including spacetime fabric). Perhaps calling this fabric "space"time"" may be conceptually erroneous as it adds some physical component to time.

Now, the concept of gravitation, that's another doozy.

I went off on a tangent there but this kind of stuff tickles me.

Mike Tweet