Can\'t avoid a creation (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 15, 2012, 13:08 (4697 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: I’ve spoken before about the non-existence of time, that the only reason we can have time is because we can see things move. [...]
It is a FACT that there is no physical basis for time.

We have indeed been over this many times before, but it will bear reconsideration. I like your statement: “To be succinct: Time is relative, based on the positions of at least two objects, not a property of the universe as say, atoms, or light.” ‘Relative’ does not mean ‘non-existent’. I’ll take my usual example: If you don’t jump out of the way of that bus mighty soon, I doubt if you will deny the reality of the sequent process of cause and effect (see below). Yes, time is relative, if you take it as our human way of measuring, and you're right that we can look back (not "go" back)- as astronomers do - at earlier stages of the universe, and that time and distance go together. That still doesn't make it non-existent. We know that like ourselves, stars are born and stars die, that matter changes, that one thing can lead to another. The sequences of cause and effect, and of before and after, are what I would call the physical basis of time, and everything that I have ever observed in myself and the world around me confirms that this is real.

You have argued that “cause and effect” are “illusory in the idea that they are necessarily distinct.” I agree that they are not NECESSARILY distinct, because every cause and every effect is intertwined with other causes and effects, and every effect will itself become a cause and vice versa. But no matter what example you take, there will always be a sequence, and for me it’s the sequence that endows time with its reality: not in the measuring sense of one minute, one hour, one year, but in the sense of a before and after, an earlier and a later.

I would add, though, that I’m wary of the argument that human “realities” are not real because they’re not valid on a cosmic level. That to me undermines the value of life itself. Philosophically, you have to decide the level on which you want to discuss the subject (see our long-lost discussion on epistemology). Our lives are based on intersubjective realities, and if these vary or change completely, the variations and changes will also be real to us. If I agree to meet you at 2 pm and you don’t show up till 3 pm, I shan’t want you to tell me that time doesn’t exist. You can call it a lost hour, heure, hora, Stunde or whatever you like, but the gap itself – the passage between x and y – is every bit as real as the gap between the earth and the sun. So too, let me repeat, is the time remaining between now and your future meeting with the bus!