Preview

Is Time Real

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
567 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Is Time Real
Is Time Real

The aspects of time that we can understand are only based on what we can perceive, observe, and calculate. Every day we look at our watches or clocks. We plan our day around different times of the day. Time tells us when to eat, when to sleep, and how long to do things for. Is time real? To answer this question, let me explain what time is first. Time is defined as a measured or measurable period, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions. This broad definition lacks the simple explanation that humans are searching for. There are many scientists, philosophers, and thinkers who have tried to put time into understanding terms. In the following paragraph, I will discuss the meaning of time perceived and theorized by two of the greatest minds of human kind – Einstein and Kant.

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (study guide, 53) came up with the idea that both space and time were relative to the observer, or the state of motion of the observer (Broadcast). If there are two chairs, and you see someone sitting in one, when you turn away, you can not be sure that he or she is still there. You also can not be sure that they are not in two chairs at the same time, or what point in time they are in them. This all leads up to Einstein's theory that time is relative. What Einstein's theory seemed to tell us was that time is not absolute and universal. It can be changed by motion. Each observer carries around his own personal scale of time and it does not absolutely agree with anybody else's.

However, some philosophers have argued that all time is unreal. Kant, for example, claimed that time both the subjective time we experience as flowing, and objective time as the fixed series of all events – is a construct of the human mind (Manuel Velasquez, 244). For Kant space and time are not real things, but are modes of experience. Kant's solution was to say that there is something in our mind, that makes everything that we experience to our sense be located

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    What is time? Time is the, “Duration in which all things happen.”(dictionary.com) Billy Collins, in the book “Nine Horses” uses literary elements such as similes and metaphors to convey the motifs of time passing, pain, love, and reality vs. imagination.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Borges gives his idea of time as, “I don’t claim to know what sort of thing time is (or even if it is a thing), but I suspect that time and the course of time are one mystery and not two” (Wood 50). Just as Borges believes that time and the movement of time is one thing, Ts’ui Pȇn’s book and labyrinth are also one unifying element of time. Through this continuous breaking of paths and time into new stems of the labyrinth, Einstein's special relativity theory is translated by Borges from a literary standpoint. Throughout “The Garden of Forking Paths”, Borges holds Einstein’s scientific influence and states that time is relative because it is perceived differently depending on the positioning of the person or persons it involves, and motion is held as an incessant branching of a labyrinth. The story then goes to say that Ts’ui Pȇn did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. Much like Einstein and Borges, “He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time” (496). In this story, Borges says that time is an unknown, ambiguous, forking of paths that exists within larger paths. According to Borges, relative time is a metaphorical…

    • 2455 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Time, is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in past, present, and future regarded as a whole. It can be argued that the steam engine is the most important machine developed in human history. Then again it can be argued that Megan Fox is the most amazing actress of all time. It’s the one who provides the most ethos that will win any argument. One can trace the roots of the Industrial Revolution all the way back to the Middle Ages and the fruits of that era's inventions, the clock is the most important player in this industrialization and the development modern society. Along with the birth of the clock time keeping began which lead to the disappearance of “eternity”.…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Embers and the Stars by Kohák the intersection of time and eternity is expressed. Kohák has focused on "natural" time, which is to say that time is not just what is expressed by a clock, or with a series of numbers on a clock. "It is, rather, set within the matrix of nature's rhythm which establishes personal yet non-arbitrary reference points." This means that time is not measured in seconds, minutes, or hours but by personal existence and experience. These "reference points" are experiences in your life that are meaningful and you help spatially distinguish points in time. Time as we know it is explained by Kohák as a "construct imposed upon nature's rhythm, subordination and ordering it". He does say that it is a useful construct, but as for the theory of relativity time does not hold up.…

    • 322 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Time is defined as the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future. In simple terms, it is ongoing events that have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. Richard McGuire showcases those events through a circular timeline where the opening and closing of the comic mimic…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Proj

    • 2180 Words
    • 9 Pages

    In 1915, Albert Einstein first proposed his theory of special relativity. Essentially, this theory proposes the universe we live in includes 4 dimensions, the first three being what we know as space, and the fourth being spacetime, which is a dimension where time and space are inextricably linked. According to Einstein, two people observing the same event in the same way could perceive the singular event occurring at two different times, depending upon their distance from the event in question. These types of differences arise from the time it takes for light to travel through space. Since light does travel at a finite and ever-constant speed, an observer from a more distant point will perceive an event as occurring later in time; however, the event is "actually" occurring at the same instant in time. Thus, "time" is dependent on space.…

    • 2180 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Donnie Darko vs. Oedipus Rex

    • 2272 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Time is a fickle and unpredictable aspect that is extremely subjective in addition to being susceptible to outside forces. In Donnie Darko, the very concept of time is so chaotic and is…

    • 2272 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In researchers timeless attempts to unveil the mystery of time, some have came upon a conclusion that time exists in the order of past and present. The future ceases to exist due to the fact that the future is affected by the present. If we were to ponder deeper into the context of time, what seemed like the future is very well a projection of predictions formed by present time. If future does exist, hence every occurrence of the present time was scripted like a play and events will subject to no alterations. However, from what humanity portrays, it is the humankind who led time to its complex state of contradictions.…

    • 2925 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Time behaves in very odd ways and is hard to observe since it is not visible as objects are. McTaggart argues against the existence of time : 1. Time necessarily involves change and consists of events in an order 2. An event is the contents of a particular moment in time 3.…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Einstein's Dreams

    • 2185 Words
    • 9 Pages

    "For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious." Albert Einstein…

    • 2185 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    TIME TRAVEL

    • 2152 Words
    • 9 Pages

    We measure the passage of time in seconds, minutes, hours and years, but this doesn't mean time flows at a constant…

    • 2152 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    book The Time Machine expresses one of the greatest and most well-known creations of science fiction which is the idea of time travel. Throughout history, scientists have been theorizing and testing the possibility of time travel. Some of the most famous scientists have even given a little thought about the impossible proposition including Albert Einstein. Einstein theorized that all parts of time, past, present, and future are relative rather than absolute. All three exist all at once.…

    • 1963 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Somthing from Nothing

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This brings us to the fact that we, the people, don’t control time. Time controls us. Not just in the sense of time keeping. Of course we use clocks and time to keep track of our everyday time, but no matter what you do time won’t stop for you. “The clock won’t stop. Not for me. Not for you. When that final tick tocks and you are forever…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psalm of Life

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Time is personified as a person with a capital letter, as if it is a proper noun. Time is described as fleeting, which means that it is not permanent. Rather, it is something temporary in this world.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Just leave it for tomorrow,” my friend Matt told me. “You have all week to complete that assignment and you want to do it now.” “I have to get this done now. There’s the chance I might not have time later,” I told him in reply. “ You know if time stops, it’s all over.” I did not understand at first what Matt was saying. What did he mean by time stopping, is that possible? “What’s all over? Can time even stop?” I asked him. “Time is an idea that we see as something eternal so if time every stops moving, the entire concept of reality stops, and life can no longer go on.”…

    • 994 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays