What time is it... Really?


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Time is a human invention. So question is invalid.

The units of time (hours, minutes, seconds, etc.) are a human invention, but time itself is a fundamental aspect of the universe.

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The units of time (hours, minutes, seconds, etc.) are a human invention, but time itself is a fundamental aspect of the universe.

Time is a completely human invention, there's nothing fundamental about it. What people think of as a 'fundamental aspect of the universe' is actually entropy

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The units of time (hours, minutes, seconds, etc.) are a human invention, but time itself is a fundamental aspect of the universe.

True. But the original question is still invalid, because putting a specific label on the amount of time passed since event x is always introducing an artificial, meaningless element.

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To make up for this lost time, we of course have added the idea of a "leap year" in which every 4 years we add an extra day. But if you do the math, that "leap year" does not fully account for every last second & as time continues to add... Those seconds become minutes, hours, days.... And of course, what about all the years before the calender included a "leap year"....

Err - do you not know why we have a leap year?

We say there are 365 days in the year and by this we mean that it takes the earth 365 days to make its annual trip around the sun. Actually, though, it takes the earth 365-1/4 days to make this trip. This means that every year we gain one-fourth of a day and every four years we gain one full day.

If we did nothing about this, our calendar would move backward one full day every four years relative to our seasons. To keep this from happening, we capture the extra day every four years and put it into our smallest month, February.

Something like that.

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The de facto calender is the Gregorian calender. As of this post, the current time is 5:10pm Sunday (EST).

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Time is a completely human invention, there's nothing fundamental about it. What people think of as a 'fundamental aspect of the universe' is actually entropy

OK, I'd like to see you get rid of time.

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As I was walking down the street one day

A man came up to me and asked me what

The time was that was on my watch, yeah...And I said

(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is

(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)

If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)

We've all got time enough to cry

And I was walking down the street one day

A pretty lady looked at me

And said her diamond watch had stopped cold dead...And I said

(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is

(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)

If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)

We've all got time enough to cry

And I was walking down the street one day

Being pushed and shoved by people trying to

Beat the clock, oh, no I just don't know

I don't know, and I said, yes I said

(Background:)

People runnin' everywhere

Don't know where to go

Don't know where I am

Can't see past the next step

Don't have time to think past the last mile

Have no time to look around

Just run around, run around and think why

(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is

(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)

If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)

We've all got time enough to die

Everybody's working (I don't) I don't care (About time)

About time (Oh no, no) I don't care

T

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As a species we invented time. If we choose to change it around, move it, reverse it or whatever it's our doing as this has no effect on anyone/thing else.

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As a species we invented time. If we choose to change it around, move it, reverse it or whatever it's our doing as this has no effect on anyone/thing else.

Sure, we defined arbitrary lengths of time and made up words for those lengths of time, but there's nothing we can do to affect time itself. We can't stop it, slow it down, speed it up, reverse it, etc. It's a property of the universe and can't be changed.

Our universe would be pretty much useless without time.

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but there's nothing we can do to affect time itself. We can't stop it, slow it down, speed it up, reverse it, etc. It's a property of the universe and can't be changed.

That's not entirely true. Time can be influenced by traveling at high speeds and near heavy objects. It's not a constant that's everywhere the same. In fact our GPS satellites are suffering from this effect and the onboard computers are designed to compensate for that very effect.

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That's not entirely true. Time can be influenced by traveling at high speeds and near heavy objects. It's not a constant that's everywhere the same. In fact our GPS satellites are suffering from this effect and the onboard computers are designed to compensate for that very effect.

but that is just a property of time itself - i.e. it will go slower for things moving faster, but we cant slow it down even more or not slow it down as much if something is travelling at a constant speed

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but that is just a property of time itself - i.e. it will go slower for things moving faster, but we cant slow it down even more or not slow it down as much if something is travelling at a constant speed

Exactly. It's like 2+2 is 4, but 2+3 is 5. Change the variables, and you change the outcome. Even when your variables are arbitrary (for example, I say 2+3 is 7 because when I say 3 I really mean the value 5), you can't change the underlying rules behind those arbitrary values.

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