Time cannot be created

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

Ahh… but change of what?

Change in anything, a state of a physical system for example.

Then you do agree with my definition! Time is the measure of change of physical things!

This is why I’ve pointed out to you that you need to shore up your understanding of the metaphysics of the change known as “coming into being”…

Metaphysics only applies when there is an underlying reality. One of course has to prove that such a underlying reality exists. I cannot show and I don’t need that.

So, wait: you’re trying to claim that ‘time’ exists in the absence of creation, but that a metaphysics that would describe ‘time’ cannot exist without an “underlying reality”?

You realize you’re undercutting your entire argument and handing us the explanation that refutes your argument, right? After all, we can just say “if the metaphysics cannot exist without an ‘underlying reality’, then neither can ‘time’. QED.”

 

[JuanFlorencio]

JuanFlorencio:

Isn’t the pushing or pulling of an object at rest an act which causes movement after the object was not moving?

Yes, that is an act.

If in your opinion this requires time to take place, go back to my post #59 and respond to my question.

The time elapsed is the duration between the point that the body is suspended and the point when the body is released.

This is your typical way of “answering” when you have no answers. Both “points” are the same, STT.

 

[AlNg]

The Big Bang was the beginning of time.

It is possible. A few physicists believe in a cyclic universe, according to which the Big Bang occurred after a Big Crunch. In such a scenario, time would not have a beginning but extends without limit into the past and into the future.

 

[Gorgias]

A few physicists believe in a cyclic universe, according to which the Big Bang occurred after a Big Crunch. In such a scenario, time would not have a beginning but extends without limit into the past and into the future.

However, the “cyclic universe” theory doesn’t solve any problems, but rather, just pushes them back further. A cyclic universe can’t come into being on its own, either, leading us to ask the question, “and when did the cycle start? What caused it?”

 

[SMHW]

We are talking about time in which it just exist for t>=0. What I am arguing is that time should definitely exists at t=0 otherwise we are dealing with a contradiction.

The derivative still won’t exist at t=0

 

[STT]

Or it didn’t exist, and then it was created.

If it changed, we have to ask what was changed.

It’s hard for us to understand this mystery because we have only encountered material change, so we can only draw analogies from that.

Christi pax.

There are two ways of looking at the problem: (1) The act of creation doesn’t cause a change as you suggested at post number 78 or (2) the act of creation does cause a change. In first case the universe including time has existed since t=0 and in second case you need time to allow causation or change.

 

[STT]

Have you made an argument? Because it seems the only one convinced by you is you. Good luck with that.

You can read OP and my response to others to see that I am making arguments.

 

[STT]

Then you do agree with my definition! Time is the measure of change of physical things!

No, I have my own definition which is more complete: Time allows change.

So, wait: you’re trying to claim that ‘time’ exists in the absence of creation, but that a metaphysics that would describe ‘time’ cannot exist without an “underlying reality”?

Yes, what I am claiming is that time is fundamental and there is no underlying reality to describe time.

You realize you’re undercutting your entire argument and handing us the explanation that refutes your argument, right? After all, we can just say “if the metaphysics cannot exist without an ‘underlying reality’, then neither can ‘time’. QED.”

That of course doesn’t follow.

 

[STT]

This is your typical way of “answering” when you have no answers. Both “points” are the same, STT.

Two points cannot lay at the same point or cannot be same since the system becomes ill-defined. System cannot be free and suspended at the same point. These two qualities are not same.

 

[STT]

The derivative still won’t exist at t=0

One side derivative exists.

 

[SMHW]

In this situation, how does a one-sided derivative tell us anything useful?

 

[STT]

In this situation, how does a one-sided derivative tell us anything useful?

It allows us to define the derivative dS/dt. We cannot have any change without this derivative. The point that I am raising is that time should exist at t=0 otherwise we cannot define this derivative. Nothing however exists at t=0 therefore time cannot be a component of creation.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

Then you do agree with my definition! Time is the measure of change of physical things!

No, I have my own definition which is more complete: Time allows change.

That’s a little vague.

Are you saying that time causes change? Or maybe that time is required for change? Or perhaps just that time enables change?

Yes, what I am claiming is that time is fundamental and there is no underlying reality to describe time.

So, how does ‘time’ come into existence, if it measures change in physical things, prior to creation?

You realize you’re undercutting your entire argument and handing us the explanation that refutes your argument, right? After all, we can just say “if the metaphysics cannot exist without an ‘underlying reality’, then neither can ‘time’. QED.”

That of course doesn’t follow.

It kind of does. If time exists, then the metaphysics of time must exist.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

JuanFlorencio:

This is your typical way of “answering” when you have no answers. Both “points” are the same, STT.

Two points cannot lay at the same point or cannot be same since the system becomes ill-defined. System cannot be free and suspended at the same point. These two qualities are not same.

No problem!: Think of a body that moves vertically upwards with decreasing speed under the influence of gravity. It reaches a height where speed decreases to 0 m/s, then it begins to move down at increasing speeds. Therefore, there is a moment and a position in space where the object is at rest (0 m/s) and then it starts moving again. Obviously, as it is not moving at that instant of maximum height, when it starts moving again it occupies the same spatial position. And it is in that same spatial position where the change in the state of movement of the object takes place.

So, what is the time elapsed when the state of movement of the body changes from rest to movement?

And please, this time respond candidly as it corresponds to someone who is in search of the truth.

 

[daverod]

time cannot be created but the clock can. and so can numbers.

and it takes a pretty ingenious man or person to be able to exactly fine tune the second hand so that it ticks upon every precise second.

60 seconds to the minute… 60 minutes to the hour… 24 hours to the day… 7 days to the month…

BINGO! I understand ‘time’ now.

not I but God might say, “So if an Astronomer says that the nearest Galaxy from the Milky Way Galaxy is a certain number of Light Years away, is that rounded off to the nearest month or day or minute”?

 

[HarryStotle]

No, I have my own definition which is more complete: Time allows change.

That would be like saying the laws of physics “allow” the physical universe to work. That isn’t exactly true, though, is it?

The laws of physics describe how the universe works by characterizing the orderliness and relatedness of the various sub-components of the universe. The laws of physics don’t, however, do anything. They aren’t efficacious in the sense that they don’t actually cause anything to occur. There are underlying causes, the metaphysical substrate that actually does bring about and maintain the order and workings of the universe.

Time, then, isn’t causal. It doesn’t create change, neither does it “allow” (in whatever sense you mean) change. Roughly speaking, time is an aspect of universe, just like the workings, order and precision that are described mathematically by the laws physics are aspects of the universe, but neither time nor the laws of physics have any active role in the creating or sustaining the universe. Something obviously does, but both time and the laws of physics are ways that we try to quantify the causal order to try and make sense of it. Neither of them actually “allow” anything.

 

[abucs]

I think time is a characteristic we have constructed to explain experience in our universe. The laws of our reality are described as a function of time.

We should be mindful that because time is relative, that is, there is no fixed time that we all experience there is a proper question of whether time exists as a reality itself or is merely a constructed tool to explain change in our universe from a certain perspective.

We should not make the mistake that how we describe time here, though completely rational from our perspective is a valid reality beyond our universe.

 

[Gorgias]

SMHW:

In this situation, how does a one-sided derivative tell us anything useful?

It allows us to define the derivative dS/dt. We cannot have any change without this derivative. The point that I am raising is that time should exist at t=0 otherwise we cannot define this derivative. Nothing however exists at t=0 therefore time cannot be a component of creation.

No, that’s not the point you were making. At time t=0, the universe springs into existence. So, at t=0, time is ‘created’ by virtue of the physical universe coming into existence. At some time t+ε, we can compute a derivative by comparing the state of t=0 with the state at t+ε.

However, there is no t<0, so there is no time t-ε. Therefore, there is no derivative to be calculated by comparing the state at t=0 with the state at t-ε (since there is no ‘state’ and no physical universe at that point).

In a weird sort of way, you’re asking “how ‘blue’ is the color blue, prior to the creation of the universe?”. The definition of the color ‘blue’ doesn’t change at the creation of the universe; rather, it simply becomes a definition concurrently with the creation of all matter. There’s no ‘change’ involved (from a physical standpoint). ‘Blue’ doesn’t have to pre-exist the universe in order for blue things to be ‘blue’ at the start of the universe.

 

[STT]

That’s a little vague.

Are you saying that time causes change? Or maybe that time is required for change? Or perhaps just that time enables change?

Time is required for change if that sounds better to you. I have an argument for that: We have a change in a system therefore we have two states related to change which are different. These two states cannot be at the same point since the state of system becomes ill-defined. Therefore these two states should be placed on different points. There is also a directionality in change because one state (first state) comes before another state (second state), this is another property of change. Up to here we realize that we need a variable with at least two points which the first point comes before the second point. There should however be a duration between these two points otherwise the second state will never take place. This variable is therefore time.

So, how does ‘time’ come into existence, if it measures change in physical things, prior to creation?

Time didn’t come into existence. You fall in trap of infinite regress if you want to prove that time can come into existence or created. You either have a contradiction as it is discussed in OP.

It kind of does. If time exists, then the metaphysics of time must exist.

There is no underlying reality that time is derived from. Time is fundamental.

 

[STT]

No problem!: Think of a body that moves vertically upwards with decreasing speed under the influence of gravity. It reaches a height where speed decreases to 0 m/s, then it begins to move down at increasing speeds. Therefore, there is a moment and a position in space where the object is at rest (0 m/s) and then it starts moving again. Obviously, as it is not moving at that instant of maximum height, when it starts moving again it occupies the same spatial position. And it is in that same spatial position where the change in the state of movement of the object takes place.

So, what is the time elapsed when the state of movement of the body changes from rest to movement?

And please, this time respond candidly as it corresponds to someone who is in search of the truth.

The object is at rest at the highest point but it is free.