AgnosticWeb.com - Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

xeno6696 — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:08:01 +0000

Here is another Amazonian tribe with amazing skills in geometry, with no formal education. Just where did that come from? Not from the needs of a primative society. The authors think it is sort of built in, a non-Darwinian stance I would think. > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13469925-Stories like this aren't new; geometry was how modern mathematics began in the first place, based upon intuitive notions of space and distance. (Pharoah needed to collect his taxes!!!!)-All humans have the ability for spatial reasoning. Hunter-gatherer societies need it to shoot arrows, gauge distances, build houses (or huts, or whatever). Clothing. They probably also use it for whatever farming they might engage in, though obviously on a different scale. To someone like me, this is an example of "Scientists have discovered that eating too much causes obesity."-That article is misleading because of this: "The basic tenets of geometry as most people know them..."-Euclid formalized geometry, he didn't invent most of what appears in "The Elements". His "Elements" was really an encyclopedic work; his innovation was in proving all of the concepts formally. But mathematicians in India, China, and Egypt were already using many of the techniques prior to Euclid, and those familiar with the history of mathematics universally agree on this point.-A fantastic point that many physicists like to point out is summed up at the end of the article:-"The education of Euclidean geometry is so strong that we take for granted it's going to apply everywhere, including spherical surfaces. Our education plays a trick with us, leading us to believe things which are not correct."

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

David Turell — Tue, 31 May 2011 00:50:42 +0000

Here is another Amazonian tribe with amazing skills in geometry, with no formal education. Just where did that come from? Not from the needs of a primative society. The authors think it is sort of built in, a non-Darwinian stance I would think.-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13469925

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

dhw — Sun, 22 May 2011 13:46:48 +0000

DAVID: And here is a tribe that has no 'time'. Events, yes, time, no:-http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-necessarily-deeply-rooted-brains.html-David's comment is slightly misleading. Time and events are not mutually exclusive.-Professor Sinha said: "For the Amondawa, time does not exist in the same way as it does for us. We can now say without doubt that there is at least one language and culture which does not have a concept of time as something that can be measured, counted, or talked about in the abstract. This doesn't mean that the Amondawa are 'people outside time', but they live in a world of events, rather than seeing events as being embedded in time."-This is a very, very fine distinction, as becomes clear from the next paragraph:-Team members including linguist Wany Sampaio and anthropologist Vera da Silva Sinha, spent eight weeks with the Amondawa researching how their language conveys concepts like 'next week' or 'last year'. There were no words for such concepts, only divisions of day and night and rainy and dry seasons. They also found nobody in the community has an age. Instead, they change their names to reflect their life stage and position within their society, so that for example a little child will give up their name to a newborn sibling, and take on a new one.-The fact that the Amondawa don't NEED terms like "next week" or "last year" has clearly influenced the evolution of their LANGUAGE. But you cannot have concepts like day and night and seasons and life stages without being aware of a movement from future to present to past, and that movement is what some of us understand by "time". (Incidentally, although the team had done earlier research on the tribe, eight weeks seems extremely short for outsiders to grasp a totally different way of thinking.)-Professor Sinha said: "We have so many metaphors for time and its passing ... we think of time as a 'thing' ... we say 'the weekend is nearly gone'; 'she's coming up to her exams'; 'I haven't got the time', and so on, and we think such statements are objective, but they aren't. We've created these metaphors and they have become the way we think. The Amondawa don't talk like this and don't think like this, unless they learn another language.-If they are able to "think like this" in another language, maybe the gap isn't as great as the researchers make out. Our metaphors, words and divisions ... like all language ... are a human invention. The fact that the Amondawa have their own way of measuring and articulating the movement does not mean the movement itself is not a reality for them, or is not an objective reality that is independent of language. The article does not actually tell us whether they use their own metaphors. Maybe they have substitutes for our "future" and "past" in the form of events like "when the corn is ripe", or "when Chief XYZ died". Such event-related metaphors would simply constitute a different method of measuring, counting and talking about the movement of time. Of course we need to read the whole report, but as it stands, I can't honestly see how the article proves "time isn't what it seems to be" or that the tribe "has no 'time'". How we perceive and articulate the movement from future to present to past will depend on each individual culture and language, including that of the Amondawa.

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

David Turell — Sat, 21 May 2011 14:46:54 +0000

Reading the article again, it exactly restates what I said earlier: Time as a "thing" does not exist. > > > > "...we never really measure t..." (t = time) > > "By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence." > > > > > Einstein models (note the use of the word 'model') time by assuming that time and space are equivalent. Time thus becomes the interval of some object as it travels some distance on a map. Time as a *real thing* does not exist for science. Without motion, there is no time.- And here is a tribe that has no 'time'. Events, yes, time, no:-http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-necessarily-deeply-rooted-brains.html

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:40:37 +0000

Fascinating new theory about time, as NOT the fourth dimension: > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html ... Reading the article again, it exactly restates what I said earlier: Time as a "thing" does not exist. > > "...we never really measure t..." (t = time) > "By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence." > > Einstein models (note the use of the word 'model') time by assuming that time and space are equivalent. Time thus becomes the interval of some object as it travels some distance on a map. Time as a *real thing* does not exist for science. Without motion, there is no time. > > Merging in with what dhw had said about time previously, Einstein's view was that time was "only a sequential ordering of events."-And now Gravity Probe B has again shown that space is warped by a big body, here the Earth, and space is swirled or stirred a bit by the planet's rotation and orbit.-The space-time concept is useful, even if time does not exist except as a human concept:- http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20444-beleaguered-mission-measures-swirling-spacetime-at-last.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

xeno6696 — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 01:43:57 +0000

Fascinating new theory about time, as NOT the fourth dimension: > > > > > > > > > http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html ... > > > I sense a strong sense of "Deja-Vu..." > > > > Seriously though... did I bring this up in my Time thread?? > > I don't remember. We can look it up.-Reading the article again, it exactly restates what I said earlier: Time as a "thing" does not exist. -"...we never really measure t..." (t = time) "By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence."-This is old hat, David... I think they just explain it better than I do. -Einstein models (note the use of the word 'model') time by assuming that time and space are equivalent. Time thus becomes the interval of some object as it travels some distance on a map. Time as a *real thing* does not exist for science. Without motion, there is no time.-Merging in with what dhw had said about time previously, Einstein's view was that time was "only a sequential ordering of events."

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

dhw — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:18:42 +0000

TONY: "Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it." That is precisely what I have been trying to say the entire time. It is a measurement assigned an arbitrary, agreed upon value.-Defending your belief in the reality of God, you wrote: "There are numerous unseen forces that we can measure by their affect on the world around us, i.e. Gravity, Magnetism, Centrifugal Force. We do not visually see them, we can not touch, taste, hear, or smell them. Yet, we know that they exist, even if our understanding of them is incomplete."-Effect follows cause; we grow old; things are born, live and die; we have memories; matter changes....Time is an unseen force that we can measure by its effects on the world around us. We do not visually see it, we cannot touch, taste, hear, or smell it. Yet we know that it exists, even if our understanding of it is incomplete.

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:56:47 +0000

Fascinating new theory about time, as NOT the fourth dimension: > > > > > > http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html ... > I sense a strong sense of "Deja-Vu..." > > Seriously though... did I bring this up in my Time thread??-I don't remember. We can look it up.

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

xeno6696 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:08:15 +0000

Fascinating new theory about time, as NOT the fourth dimension: > > > http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html-I sense a strong sense of "Deja-Vu..."-Seriously though... did I bring this up in my Time thread??

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:59:40 +0000

'Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it,'"- That is precisely what I have been trying to say the entire time. It is a measurement assigned an arbitrary, agreed upon value. - Thanks for the link. Good read.

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be (reply)

dhw — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:34:03 +0000

David has alerted us to a new theory about time:-"The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is not only deeply intuitive, it also plays an important role in our mathematical descriptions of physical systems. For instance, we define an object's speed as its displacement per a given time. But some researchers theorize that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity that flows on its own, along with the idea that time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, are incorrect. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a view that corresponds more accurately to the physical world: time as a measure of the numerical order of change [...] "- "By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence. This view doesn't mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time."-I'd be interested to hear the opinions of Matt and Tony on this, especially in view of the oft repeated argument that time does not exist and physicists have long since rejected the concept of a "flow". Now we just have "some researchers" theorizing, with a number of speculative "mays". I'm also confused by the reference to "absolute time", as if it were the current favourite concept. I thought this theory had been under fire ever since Einstein.

Time Isn\'\'t What it Seems to be

David Turell — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:18:07 +0000

Fascinating new theory about time, as NOT the fourth dimension:- http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html