Scientific Philosophy: Time

By:

Dillon Wheeler

How is time defined?

How is time travel defined?

I was very reluctant to go to the store today, but i went anyways. During the course of my travels, I kind of zoned out. When I arrived back home, I realized that I had just gone to the store and back, without thinking about it, I had not experienced the passing of time. It was almost as if I traveled through time from Point A to Point B. Point A being my room before going to the store. Point B being me after returning from the store. They are the same place (

my room), just at different intervals in time. In this sense, could I have time traveled? Is the secret to time traveling all in our minds? If so, is sleeping time traveling? What constitutes as traveling through time. Is it our physical bodies not aging? How is time defined in that sense? It doesn’t add up.

Time - defined as the continuum in which events occur in succession from the past to the present and on to the future. - Thanks Wikipedia.

Time.

So Point A came before Point B and Point C will come after Point B but Points A,B, and C are all the exact same thing just at different moments. So because they are all the same thing (my room) how could one come before the other? Seems like an impossibility to me for example:

If a room is sealed and left untouched, but observed five times over the course of five days, the concept of time means that the first observation comes before the second, second before the third, third before the fourth, and finally the fourth before the fifth. Nothing wrong with that right? Now, if the room is left untouched, completely sealed off, how does one distinguish between Points 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? These observations are all events of the same thi

ng. But they are precisely the same thing, unchanged by time or anything else, so how do we know that time has affected these events differently? How do you tell the difference between point 2 and 5 for example? What does time show us that tells us there is a difference between point 2 and point 5? With that in mind, my real question is this:

Do inanimate objects experience time, does everything and nothing experience time, or do only animate objects experience time?

Time travel - the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, either sending objects (or in some cases just information) backwards in time to some moment before the present, or sending objects forward from the present to the future without the need to experience the intervening period (at least not at the normal rate). - Thanks again Wikipedia.

Time travel.

What is time travel exactly? Is it the jumping of time, or is it just experiencing time in itself? Wikipedia defines it above, but where did that definition come from? Can anybody really tell us what time travel truly is?

So time travel, using the previous example of the sealed off room, with the five separate observations at precise moments in time we have Point 1 = Day 1, 12 P.M, Point 2 = Day 2, 12 P.M, Point 3 = Day 3, 12 P.M, etc. With these points, and the concept of time travel (as defined above) in mind, could we consider the possibility that the room itself has traveled in time, or another possibility, stayed stationary? Indeed we could, lets take a look.

So Point 1 and Point 2 are exactly one day apart. The observations are photographs of the exact same area. By looking at Point 1 and Point 2 which are the same thing, one day apart, we see that, well, we don’t see anything. They are identical to each other, the only difference is the concept of time. Therefore, we can conclude there is a difference between the rooms, they are identical in every way, but there is a difference of time, the fourth dimension.

Now, my question is how do we know that the room itself, had not traveled through time during the time we had not observed the points? We have two images of the same thing, at different points. We had captured the room at two different events of time, but nothing else. There was nothing else to tell us that the room had experienced time as we experience it. Consequently it is possible that the room had in fact traveled forwards, or backwards in time, or that time itself is something only animate objects experience.

So your wondering what the

point of all of this is right?

Well at the beginning, I mentioned me going to the store and “zoning” out. Just like in our example of the sealed room. I had observed Point A and Point B. Point A being approximately Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 7:14 P.M, and Point B being approximately Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 7:33 P.M.

7:14

- 7:33

= 0:19 minutes.

19 minutes were unaccounted for. Sure, I had gone and done these things, but it was my subconscious doing them, not me. (me as in my conscious)

So I have Point A and Point B and a difference of 19 minutes between the two. Now, just like the room example, Point A and Point B are exactly the same, therefore, did I experience the 19 minutes between the two? Or, did I (I being my conscious mind) travel through a wormhole or some other device that caused time travel? I know my body experienced the 19 minutes, but my conscious mind, did not. So just like the sealed room, which we would all agree experienced the 24 hours between the Points, my conclusion is, however unlikely, is that by zoning out, I traveled from Point A to Point B without experiencing the 19 minutes between them therefore effectively traveling through time in the sense that time is the continuation of events.

But I am not a physicist or a professional. I am merely a student attending a top five university in Canada (Not even majoring in Science... yet). My passion though is what I like to call the scientific philosophy, (May or may not be related to the philosophy of science, scientific philosophy is just what I call my methods of questioning things that I experience every day.) studying the aspect of everything relating to topics like reality, time, and the human mind, origin of everything, even religion. This entry I wrote is completely theoretical, meant for a philosophic approach to the concept of what time is and how it is measured. How you interpret it is completely up to you, I encourage questioning what I have concluded (positive criticism) as it promotes greater learning for everyone.

If you have made it this far, Thank You for reading!

- Dillon Wheeler