Tuesday 7 December 2010
Friday 3 December 2010
Small food serving is sustainable
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| Summer berries with vanilla mascarpone |
It is very good business in the hospitality industry, particularly in restaurants to provide good wholesome food in small portions. This will assist weight loss for customers who are trying to lose weight and help the profit margins of struggling establishments. It is thereby necessary that what little there is to eat must not only be satisfying to the palate but must also be balanced in terms of nutrients. I like the fact that the offerings at the function was in small portions but taken together including the mains is delicious and healthy. The food was free so, I have not had a chance to quibble on price.
Wednesday 1 December 2010
ECOLOGIC
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/ecologic.php
Teacher's Resources
FRESH WATER (Image provided by treehugger.com all copyrights reserved)
Freshwater is not only the most valuable resource in the future but also right here and now. Australians today buy expensive and wasteful bottled water arguably more than any country in the world.
Find out more and see the Powerhouse museum exhibition or click on the above teacher's resource link.
You only have to visit any convenience stores springing up all over Sydney and see how many brands there are on offer but that's not my point. It stands to reason why green business should try to manage our fresh water supply while it is the rainy season (the wettest year since 1959).
Teacher's Resources
FRESH WATER (Image provided by treehugger.com all copyrights reserved)
Find out more and see the Powerhouse museum exhibition or click on the above teacher's resource link.
You only have to visit any convenience stores springing up all over Sydney and see how many brands there are on offer but that's not my point. It stands to reason why green business should try to manage our fresh water supply while it is the rainy season (the wettest year since 1959).
Thursday 18 November 2010
About time for philosophy discusssion. Facebook thread republished
Or why not talk abut time instead? What is time, i don't mean the semantics? Is time relevant to how we perceive reality?
about 2 weeks ago
Let's do some speculations. Let's not be limited but take our time. Who's got time to waste. Can it really? How did the concept time start exactly? Who first decided that we must divide our segmented moments.
How do you see time?
a snapshot
a river
journeys
a loop
sparks
rope
a good read
smoke
key
stories
rule
mountaintop/valleys
equations
intervals
blinks>breaths
weaving
pause, stop.& go
other_________________(what)
How can that be?
Can there be an end of time, if you agreed if there was a start, in the instant of time the heartbeat started that will foreshadow a time when the beat ended?
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
What time was it before anyone has ever thought of time? When the sun was the sole timepiece, how long was a day?
...or hasn't time started yet...
Was there time even when there were no people to think of it? What if we destroy time, wouldn't there be time for everyone? What will really happen?
What if everyone on earth ignore the prison of time and dictates of their wristswatches and do the sort of things they like to do but hardly have any time for? Will time really stop? (tongue in cheek)
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
"Time" is just an abstraction that we derive from the way in which we experience changes in our environment. Our minds "order" these changes (or maybe they are already ordered when they come to our minds), and we call that set of ordered changes "the passage of time."
about 2 weeks ago · Report
>>What time was it before anyone has ever thought of time? When the sun was the sole timepiece, how long was a day?<<
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Same length it is now. You're confusing time itself with the arbitrary units we use to measure it. They are not the same.
>>...or hasn't time started yet...
Was there time even when there were no people to think of it? What if we destroy time, wouldn't there be time for everyone? What will really happen?<<
We can't destroy time. We could stop measuring it, but we'd still experience it.
"Time" is just an abstraction that we derive from the way in which we experience changes in our environment. Our minds "order" these changes (or maybe they are already ordered when they come to our minds), and we call that set of ordered changes "the passage of time."
about 2 weeks ago · Report
I can 'see' this, but, if time is 'just an abstraction', how can it also exist as pre-ordered changes in our environment when entering our minds?
I don't see why it cant be both, so that it is a number of phenomena - not 'just' a human abstraction. Although of course we can only perceive so much about it.
>>I can 'see' this, but, if time is 'just an abstraction', how can it also exist as pre-ordered changes in our environment when entering our minds?<<
about 2 weeks ago · Report
It can't. When I first said that "time" is just an abstraction, I meant our experience of time. If, in fact, the changes come to our mind pre-ordered, then that order is the objective, metaphysical essence of time. That said, our experience of "time" (notice the quotes are back) still requires that our minds make sense of that order.
Got a little sloppy with my language there is all. Sorry for the confusion.
'We can't destroy time. We could stop measuring it, but we'd still experience it.'
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
You mean i need to be conscious of time to measure or experience it? What happens if there are no perceivers, observers or experiencers of time (abstraction or thing), will anyone be able to say that it even exists? Isn't the experience of time a dimension of existence? To exist one is bound in a specific time? What would it mean to be outside of time?
Time is the measurement of the motion of 'something' by intelligence as it moves through its possible contradictory notions of itself in relation to other somethings and nothing (space).
about 2 weeks ago · Report
It is destroyed by nothing and created by something.
It moves in a direction the arrow of time>>>this way>> and in a cycle of coming and going between contradictory opposites including itself "death" as it is the particular metaphysical entity ...that becomes prominent when the object reaches its maximum entropy and can no longer maintain order then that knower of the object is unable to maintain itself as an identifiable something.Entropy vai the laws of nature disorder somethings.
Time is then up...literally it become most relevant to an observer at one point in a cycle ..that of going .
>>>Who's got time to waste. <<<
Whatever has a future and as yet does not have a past..and the present has an infinite amount of itself.
>>>
Who first decided that we must divide our segmented moments.<<<
The nature of the environment we are in ,its nature makes it subject to infallibility relative to order.
It is something and nothing.. abstract and concrete..the necessity of an identity relates to it as an abstract the "something" is that concrete that creates time (it is not more than the movement of somethings) ..objects create time..
It gains momentum from something and is dissappated (not as relevant)in relation to what is Not a thing.
Clearly as physical bodies with mass we cannot be in the same time and place but here we are not our physical bodies. Traces of our time (what I wrote in this board) stays here but I may have gone somewhere else. The person who wrote has recovered that specific thoughts I encapsulated bits of time after it has already happened. Then, in this sense a thing with mass is not limited to the speed of light as Einstein suggests but we as thinking persons leave bits (points of view and our 'time') of us behind. If time is not dependent on what happens inside our heads then time goes on as reference to those who came after only as space time. Beings outside of our spacetime could be or are not necessarily conditioned by time since they might have other frame of reference. Could it be that what we experience as a passage of time is not as permanent and immutable (outside our own experience of time but distinct as itself) as you think Aaron but the thinking organism's 'coping mechanism' in the same way that lower forms of life develop poisons for self-preservation and we are simply grasping and hanging on to our own 'plane of simultaneity (ala Rietdijk-Putnam)? Frankly these are just my idle speculations.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
' "death" as it is the particular metaphysical entity ...that becomes prominent when the object reaches its maximum entropy'
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
This is an error Bruce, it is not the ultimate end, hair grows after the body is dead. Free energy (or Gibbs energy) actually does not stop in death, As I said the chemical reactions necessary for life to exist, continues in decomposition of the body. Who is to say what really happens to the conscious being who once inhabited that body?
You piqued my interest in time, Jo, so I went to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and found this introduction:
about 2 weeks ago · Report
"Discussions of the nature of time, and of various issues related to time, have always featured prominently in philosophy, but they have been especially important since the beginning of the 20th Century. This article contains a brief overview of some of the main topics in the philosophy of time — Fatalism; Reductionism and Platonism with respect to time; the topology of time; McTaggart's arguments; The A Theory and The B Theory; Presentism, Eternalism, and The Growing Universe Theory; time travel; and the 3D/4D controversy — together with some suggestions for further reading on each topic, and a bibliography."
Where does a neophyte to the topic even begin?
Time is a mental illness related to neuroticism, excessive anxiety and being a control freak about "when" things happen. Most of the world has it.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
'Where does a neophyte to the topic even begin?' lol don't ask me Lyman
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
It is interesting that we take time for granted. I think about time and the presumptions all of us have about how it works and how it is always present or not depending on the event as it happens. We wait for time to come but it sneaks up on us when it is the last thing on our minds. It makes my head spin in a nice way.
You are misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I am saying,you asked for an explanation of time .
about 2 weeks ago · Report
I explained its relation to something and Not an thing.
I made no assertions about the infallibility of the living entity.
>>.As I said the chemical reactions necessary for life to exist, continues in decomposition of the body. Who is to say what really happens to the conscious being who once inhabited that body? <<<
Who says that chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist.
'chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist' Who said it isn't necessary?
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
'I made no assertions about the infallibility of the living entity.' I didn't say you had asserted that.
Again I will quote you below (41 minutes ago before this post) before you delete this post I am responding to, as you did the others when you made opaque references to something not even asserted or that you yourself has misunderstood or failed to comprehend what was actually stated. Then you insist that everyone else has got it wrong and you are right at all times and with no apologies. It is severely annoying. Anyway my answers and comments are in triple parentheses((())).
Bruce replied to me:
[Time is the measurement of the motion of 'something' by intelligence as it moves through its possible contradictory notions of itself in relation to other somethings and nothing (space). (((You mean frame of reference, moment in time, what do you mean?)))
It is destroyed by nothing and created by something. (((What is?)))
It moves in a direction the arrow of time>>>this way>> and in a cycle of coming and going between contradictory opposites including itself "death" as it is the particular metaphysical entity ...that becomes prominent when the object reaches its maximum entropy and can no longer maintain order then that knower of the object is unable to maintain itself as an identifiable something.Entropy vai the laws of nature disorder somethings. (((No, entropy is the the second law governing the universe thermodynamics -absence of life-death as the state of entropy (without the reactions that constitute life)) but you misunderstood what it means. It doesn't mean a thing or non-thing get disordered after a passage of time, which implies a breaking down (or negative change) but it more layered that that for instance, there is higher and lower entropy. That is what it implies in energy particles means in physics. Time however cannot be measured in human death, alone. We experience time when we are alive since we can report what we went through as a participant, we were there, whereas in death we can't anymore. Anyway, it is easy to mistake entropy as some sort of physical death. In physics, that is not what is meant by entropy.)))
Time is then up...literally it become most relevant to an observer at one point in a cycle ..that of going .
>>>Who's got time to waste. <<<
Whatever has a future and as yet does not have a past..and the present has an infinite amount of itself. (((What do you mean? What has a future? Are you talking about someone who has all of infinity to wait?)))
>>>
Who first decided that we must divide our segmented moments.<<<
The nature of the environment we are in ,its nature makes it subject to infallibility relative to order. (((This doesn't make sense either. Did you mean our environment determines our perception of time?)))
It is something and nothing.. abstract and concrete..the necessity of an identity relates to it as an abstract the "something" is that concrete that creates time (it is not more than the movement of somethings) ..objects create time..
It gains momentum from something and is dissappated (not as relevant)in relation to what is Not a thing.]
(((Here you are making a reference to dissipation (entropy as an example of what time can be which is really not clear. How can we explain time as a dissipation? If we have two travellers (both have equal capacity in the faculties) but one has chosen to hear a story and followed a fork on the road, so, the traveller who heard the story retold has had time to re-experience it, whereas the other one who didn't hear the story from a storyteller has not missed out entirely. He could have already heard of it in the past. However, having lost the time/chance of the story's recounting means that he lost out on the time of hindsight. Arguing about a thing in relation to what is not a thing just delays you from participating fully, Bruce))).
Interesting comment Aaron,
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
[>>What time was it before anyone has ever thought of time? When the sun was the sole timepiece, how long was a day?<<
Same length it is now. You're confusing time itself with the arbitrary units we use to measure it. They are not the same. ]
How can it be the same? They measured time much more arbitrarily then than the precision in which we can measure time now. I posit that they perceived time in a different way because they only have routine if the sun is not shining. Also time contracts for the observer. Time sometimes is slow or too fast. My point is NOT if the Greenwich time is to be believed since it is latitude and longitude fact, (as point of reference for everyone on earth) but does time exist independent of us human beings who have been ruled by time itself. Would time itself stop if we stop it from ruling our lives?
Jo,
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Would the god you believe in stop existing if you stopped believing? I think the same principle of logic applies to "Would time itself stop if we stop it from ruling our lives?"
Both time and god are intangibles that our naming of them helps (and hinders) our understanding of them.
The concept of time has many dimensions. When I explain geology to tourists, I have to help them get out of their everyday experiences of time and into the understanding of 'deep time theory'. It's one thing to say, "Only yesterday I did such-and-such" and quite another to say, "This formation is 600 million years old and that one over there is 'only' 50 million years old". (I do this by relating various geologic time periods to the time of the dinosaurs, which everybody has some knowledge about.)
It is destroyed by nothing and created by something. (((What is?)))
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Time obviously.
being the measurement of moving objects it requires objects and without objects it has nothing to be relative too.
Who first decided that we must divide our segmented moments.<<<
The nature of the environment we are in ,its nature makes it subject to infallibility relative to order. (((This doesn't make sense either. Did you mean our environment determines our perception of time?)))
The nature of the environment determines the division of time.On this planet that is days ,years etc..being a physical environment means that time will be in eveidence and entropy will be applying disorder.
If you persist after death then you may not be in possesion of a material body as you now perceive that to be, therefore time ceases to be something you can relate to as it is fundamentally provided by the motion of objects.
>>>>>>>>>>Again I will quote you below (41 minutes ago before this post) before you delete this post I am responding to, as you did the others when you made opaque references to something not even asserted or that you yourself has misunderstood or failed to comprehend what was actually stated. <<<<<<<
That is false ,I responded to a question regarding time ..I gave you an answer by using fundamental susbstances that time exists in relation too..it exists in realtion to yourself as an absatrct identity and objects as concrete PHenomena.
SOMETHINGS are what time is the measurement oFF...I"S are what is measuring.
Comprehending what is stated is not really possible to a great degree...it is idle speculation mostly.
I am explaining it from a metaphysical perspective and it is a metaphysical topic.
Anyway, it is easy to mistake entropy as some sort of physical death. In physics, that is not what is meant by entropy.)))
Entropy is applicable to" somethings" it is getting old ,the disorder inherent in a thing maintaining order in time..The object provides the stage to which entropy fades the cutains...time is the progress of the drama...that ends in Death.
Death is when a particular identifiable can no longer sustain the form it has been abstractly identied as.
Time is difficult to understand because it is difficult to define.
I am attempting in brief to identify the topics essential for such a definition...
(((Here you are making a reference to dissipation (entropy as an example of what time can be which is really not clear. How can we explain time as a dissipation? If we have two travellers (both have equal capacity in the faculties) but one has chosen to hear a story and followed a fork on the road, so, the traveller who heard the story retold has had time to re-experience it, whereas the other one who didn't hear the story from a storyteller has not missed out entirely. He could have already heard of it in the past. However, having lost the time/chance of the story's recounting means that he lost out on the time of hindsight. Arguing about a thing in relation to what is not a thing just delays you from participating fully, Bruce))).
If you think this is any clearer than anything I said then I disagree...it is just not able to be understood by any means.
I identify topics to consider time in relation too.
Something
nothing
entropy ,
death
identity
motion
objects
Since doing so is the only rational means of progress I don't rush to apologise for my approach.
>>>>It is severely annoying.<<<
>>>Or why not talk abut time instead? What is time, i don't mean the semantics? Is time relevant to how we perceive reality?<<,
I answered the question ,you reply with your own annoyance ...if the subject is difficult then it won't be >>EASY to understand ..I am making it as simple as I can.
You assume I am incorrect as a matter of course,and you expect me to agree with your appraisal ..I don't.
Time is a universal that exists in relation to other universals they all interact via contradiction..
about 2 weeks ago · Report
I am identifying the priori topics and explaining the nature of the contradictions ..they eliminate each other.
They are the basis for phenomena just as time is,the interaction is phyics and metaphysics.
Time can only be approached metaphysically because it is a META physical topic and has relevance to both abstract and concrete identifiables.
Lyman you wrote, 'Would the god you believe in stop existing if you stopped believing? I think the same principle of logic applies to "Would time itself stop if we stop it from ruling our lives?"
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Both time and god are intangibles that our naming of them helps (and hinders) our understanding of them. '
This is what I mean by semantics, Lyman. I have read Foucault's 'The order of Things' and according to him you cannot take 'time' and replace with the word 'god' in this context. With respect, I don't want to insult your intelligence or anyone here since I wish to talk about Time and not god or Gods because then we will be talking about theology not philosophy.
I was not suggesting nor did I intend to introduce god into the thread. My point was to show the fallacy of the logic in the question, "Would time itself stop if we stop it from ruling our lives?" Sorry, my bad. I could have used the tooth fairy, instead.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
'Time can only be approached metaphysically because it is a META physical topic and has relevance to both abstract and concrete identifiables.' I disagree entirely.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Here are my reasons:
1. Time is a phenomenon that one can see an outcome out of. It has verifiable physical effects.
2. Time is also a process and a documentable process has identifiable outcomes that are physical (hence it is a subject of debate and study in physics).
3. Time does not stop, it is relentless. It constantly affect us. It is not beyond the physical (or metaphysical). Time in fact keeps things on the physical plane. It rules everything.
'The concept of time has many dimensions.' Great statement, Lyman. Time is a dimension along with width, height, length, breadth, thickness, etc.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
The existence of time of course can lead to discussions in metaphysics or ontology, etc. or anything else you can imagine, Bruce.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
I was reading how a multifaceted-eyed insect experiences time very different to us. Are you going to say that how we experience time is superior to the way an insect does?
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
'I could have used the tooth fairy, instead.' lol that would have been better
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Bruce wrote,
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
'You assume I am incorrect as a matter of course,and you expect me to agree with your appraisal ..I don't.'
I have not said that you were incorrect, much of the time I was merely probing further and for the record I try not to expect anything. This is why when I said that it is easy to mistake something for another, it is because you and I experience the world or think you and I understand what I am talking about here.
I am talking about the phenomenon of time as fact and I am not going into the metaphysics of time. You can start another topic because if we do. it will be counterproductive, i'll explain later.
If you want, you can say that time does not exist. You have not stated your position in the OP. How do you see time? That was the question, not what is time?
I was reading how a multifaceted-eyed insect experiences time very different to us. Are you going to say that how we experience time is superior to the way an insect does?
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Yes.
Ask it what it has planned for next week and see for yourself.
>>You mean i need to be conscious of time to measure or experience it?<<
no.
>> What happens if there are no perceivers, observers or experiencers of time (abstraction or thing), will anyone be able to say that it even exists?<<
Obviously there won't be anyone around to say ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL.
>> Isn't the experience of time a dimension of existence?<<
What does "dimension of existence" mean?
>> To exist one is bound in a specific time?<<
Nope.
>> What would it mean to be outside of time?<<
There is no such thing that can be experienced, so we cannot know.
Time is a phenomenon that one can see an outcome out of. It has verifiable physical effects.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Change is a phenomena ,entropy is observable,objects are phenomena time is arguably just the abstract measurement of these with a system of understanding.
It appears constant but our experience of it is relevant to ourselves..children and adults have different experiences of what is measured as the same amount of time,when you are asleep you have no notion of it so it relies on awareness to be relative to anything at all.
>>Time is a phenomenon that one can see an outcome out of.<<
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Like what? What are the "outcomes" of time? Because all I see are CHANGES. No time, and certainly no outcomes of time.
>> It has verifiable physical effects.<<
Such as?
>>2. Time is also a process and a documentable process has identifiable outcomes that are physical (hence it is a subject of debate and study in physics).<<
SUCH AS???
Aaron replied
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
'Like what? What are the "outcomes" of time? Because all I see are CHANGES. No time, and certainly no outcomes of time.'
Time makes change possible. Everything and our bodies included, change as a result of the passing of time (as I see it) such as the effect of stuff like neutrinos whizzing past us merrily, gravity keeping our feet to the ground from the electromagnetism and other forces, dark, anti-matter, rays affecting us or exploding supernova plasmas, gamma waves still hitting us after billion of years, even from the energy that fires in our cells from the of burning fats and sugar (i wish! which got photosynthesis energy from the light of the sun) and, any other many process occurring in our bodies, maintaining the illusion that we are experiencing time in a linear manner.
Time seems to be constant, which is present whenever elements, specifically carbon lifeforms like us are constantly rearranged. This sequential experience of time allow us to view changes around us even though each core of us is the one that is changing or that the things around us are worn out or that some things stay the same only in the imagination. It might be also that we experience the effect and outcomes of time simultaneously but as future and past in one single moment. One single moment could encapsulate what has gone before and spell out the future. It wouldn't really matter when or at what place or at vantage point can you see this slice of time. This tiny moment is the future but then becomes the past in a blink of the eye. Does that sound crazy? Ok, the special relativity does sound crazy.
Thanks for asking questions though.In an eternal Universe where time slows according to gravitational force, there are locations where time is stopped as well as locations where time does not exist at all (or is moving so quickly as to seem that all is occurring simultaneously).
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Does time exist where there is no gravity?
My take on it is that in this eternal chaos of ever-being, some of “what is” has been sucked into this gravitational time-warp we call “life on Earth”. This experience provides us with the opportunity to focus on individual “moments” and to perceive existence in an orderly fashion.
In this, we have the opportunity to be aware of our existence, to think, to wonder, to wait. All the marvelous things we experience in life, the joy and the pain, are only experienced via “time”.Kim, I know of the theory that light waves are affected by gravity, but I am unaware (ignorant) of time being similarly affected. As you know, I am wary of science fiction 'truths' and this sounds like a fictional 'time warp' to me. No disrespect, but could you come up with a research source for this concept?
about 2 weeks ago · Report>>Time makes change possible.<<
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Change makes time exist.
>> Everything and our bodies included, change as a result of the passing of time (as I see it)<<
Time passes as a result of things (like our bodies) changing.
>> such as the effect of stuff like neutrinos whizzing past us merrily, gravity keeping our feet to the ground from the electromagnetism and other forces, dark, anti-matter, rays affecting us or exploding supernova plasmas, gamma waves still hitting us after billion of years, even from the energy that fires in our cells from the of burning fats and sugar (i wish! which got photosynthesis energy from the light of the sun) and, any other many process occurring in our bodies, maintaining the illusion that we are experiencing time in a linear manner.<<
All those things are what MAKES TIME PASS.
>>Time seems to be constant,<<
Actually, it doesn't. when under considerable stress, time seems to pass more slowly. When unconscious, it seems to pass very quickly. When under the influence of certain drugs, it seems to pass at varying rates. Time doesn't seem constant UNTIL we take a regular, predictable change (like the deformation of quartz when a current is applied to it, or the movement of the earth around its sun), and use that as our means of tracking time.
Bruce: "Who says that chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist."
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Not sure who said it first, but I'll say it: Chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist. If you don't believe it, try stop having them while you're looking for some life form without them.
On the whole time question I remain a St. Augustine fan.Not sure who said it first, but I'll say it: Chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist. If you don't believe it, try stop having them while you're looking for some life form without them.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewoDVPCLnt0 - 126k ->>Chemical reactions are necessary for life to exist. <<
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Prove it. Prove that "life without chemical reactions" entails a contradiction.Fadia, once Bruce's role as village idiot here is accepted, relating to his posts becomes much easier.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Aaron, you're asking me to justify the claim that life inherently involves chemical processes/reactions? My primary reason for believing so is inductive, I must admit, but in terms of analytical thought, life inherently involves growth and reproduction, and in the material realm those processes do include chemical reactions. Specifically within our world those reactions involve reactions between carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, though we recognize other theoretical possibilities. I thought this was more or less self-evident. Or were you talking about non-material life as a spiritual phenomenon? That is a whole different kettle of fish.David,
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Yes, mainly carbon based life forms seem to require chemical reactions for life to continue. We know that helium and hydrogen are the most common elements but as far as we know only carbon is the most versatile in reconfiguring their particles and borrowings of neutrons, electrons etc through principles such as opposites attract or like repels like.
You know what really excites me is the intricateness and the artistry immanent in the universe. What appears to be quite rigid and certain in science, turns out to be not at all, even maths is not quite as set in stone either. It makes the miracle of life very interesting if we cannot be sure since everything seemed to be both random and ordered. It is a bit like an ordered chaos, like my very messy office. I know exactly where everything is and I know where they are because it makes sense to me, whereas other people would be overwhelmed by the 'mess'.
Alma, Anna, Ben, David, Lyman contributed in this thread. It is all very entertaining reading. Thanks all.
If you haven't been mentioned, sorry, its just that you probably have not really contributed enough or maybe at the other end of the spectrum contributed too much that your posts have more likely muddied it all up. I really do not want judgment from anyone here or do I like to make judgments on your posts. It's not as though the posts are going to be graded or marked. No need to shout and try to keep your lids on please.Ben you wrote, 'Time is a mental illness related to neuroticism, excessive anxiety and being a control freak about "when" things happen. Most of the world has it.'
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
I'm with you there about nearly everyone paranoid about 'being on time' and the anxiety of being late or being considered complete failures for not having been on the right time or place or the right background. Anyway that's another topic.
This is why I asked how do you perceive time, does it really matter so much, if we just take time off and relax? Wouldn't the world continue to rotate regardless of what antsy people think and do. Tomorrow will come anyway. It already has from where I am, whereas you are asleep while I am typing this. It is okay not to bother with time and not to wake up with the jangling sound every morning. I actually missed being woken up by roosters instead.@Lyman
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Sorry, I took for granted that the gravitational affect on time was common knowledge. I did a Google search on “how gravity affects time” and came up with a number of references that are helpful.
My rudimentary understanding of this is visualizing at grid, where time flows in straight lines. Insert a circular object and allow the gridlines to bend around that object. As the gravity bends those gridlines, it also warps time, time slows down as it is pulled into the object. In my understanding, time and space are one and the same.
Okay, so here’s some of what I found:
Here’s an article - but also an image of Earth and that grid I just spoke of:http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/may11/gpb-051105.html?view=print
Next, from the “Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy”: http://www.iep.utm.edu/time-sup/#H15 “How Does Gravity Affect Time?” Answer (in part): “…According to general relativity, gravitational differences affect time by dilating it. Observers in a less intense gravitational potential find that clocks in a more intense gravitational potential run slow relative to their own clocks…”
And:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41740 “The researchers exploited wave-particle duality and superposition within an atom interferometer to prove that an effect known as gravitational redshift – the slowing down of time near a massive body – holds true to a precision of seven parts in a billion.”
While I don’t consider Wikipedia to be a reputable source for facts, they do state it well in the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation
“Gravitational time dilation is the effect of time passing at different rates in regions of different gravitational potential; the lower the gravitational potential (closer to the center of a massive object), the more slowly time passes. Albert Einstein originally predicted this effect in his theory of relativity and it has since been confirmed by tests of general relativity.”
And then, to put it simply, check out:
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Explore_Our_Universe/What_is_Warped_Spacetime?%2F
Or just Google it for more.Kim,
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Your post was stimulating for me and yeah I think there are many paradox of time that have yet to be unravelled and what you meant by 'spinning so fast everything is happening all at once' is like what I speculated on-presentism. You know in every instant of time, everything happens and it is all past, present & future combined and that there is no such thing as 'objective time' as we and the ancients like to make it out.
There have been tests to find out if simultaneity is actually possible. It is actually not proven definitely if the bar for accuracy is set very high. Equations have too many variables and too many don't add up because of human errors or that machines are not able to self-correct itself like their creators (who ironically would prefer not to be corrected) can. We can't blame these things. If they can really think, machines would look up to us as Gods. I guess we have an image to maintain, lol. Math or calculus is actually quite interesting and it is not as boring as I thought, definitely sexy.Thanks for the links Kim, save me a lot of time looking it for myself. Yeah I knew about electromagnetism sort of bending 'time' in all sorts of ways. Also that there are thermal imaging (based on the density of the landmass) which shows time variation on this planet. Your time is not the same as mine but i guess we don't need machines to tell us that but interesting to know all the same. This is wonderful because it is all to do with large mass being affected by even bigger masses and so on. All of it already just happened and still keeps happening and we're all hitching for a ride.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete PostLyman thanks for writing this, '"Discussions of the nature of time, and of various issues related to time, have always featured prominently in philosophy, but they have been especially important since the beginning of the 20th Century. This article contains a brief overview of some of the main topics in the philosophy of time — Fatalism; Reductionism and Platonism with respect to time; the topology of time; McTaggart's arguments; The A Theory and The B Theory; Presentism, Eternalism, and The Growing Universe Theory; time travel; and the 3D/4D controversy — together with some suggestions for further reading on each topic, and a bibliography."
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Yeah the most popular theory seems to be the expanding universe theory, i guess that is what is on the textbooks. According to this one, there's actually less matter in the universe compared to the big nothing. What I like best and the most quirky is the theory that universes actually eat each other up and they get bloated and implode from the sheer pressure turn into black holes, which in turn eat up other universes that come along but here comes the funny part, universes and constellations of stars don't become fat! How unfair is that? I only have to look at food and gain grams.
Anyway, I'm saying that according to this theory and it seems to agree with the laws of thermodynamics that the whole of the everything will stay the same, that you will always ended up with the same amount you started out with. It's like human beings being born for nothing (i mean they've done nothing except had parent who had relations) and then end up with nothing when they croak.What is also intriguing is the weak force. I guess it makes sense since there is a strong force.
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
Wouldn't it be fun if we put together our ideas and create a unifying theory of everything? Then that might be miscontrued as a lame idea that can only be thought from the arrogance of the physics enthusiasts like me. So, maybe not. Just looking though. Seriously wouldn't that be fun, assuming that we would all do it for a laugh but if we did think something good, it wouldn't be testable. Those lab guys have been at it far longer.Thanks for this topic Josephine.
about 2 weeks ago · Report
What can be more blind-blowing and stimulating that time?Aaron: “Change makes time exist.”
about 2 weeks ago · Report
“Time passes as a result of things (like our bodies) changing.”
I’m trying to understand how change can *cause* time.
Where space and time are one, it would seem that change is something that is experienced as the result of time, rather than change being the cause of time. Without time, every state of *change* would occur simultaneously and would thus not be change but rather, the simultaneous existence of all states. Time puts these states in order so that we can experience them individually.
“Time doesn't seem constant UNTIL we take a regular, predictable change (like the deformation of quartz when a current is applied to it, or the movement of the earth around its sun), and use that as our means of tracking time.”
I realize that time can seem to fly by at times and drag on at other times. I also realize that, seeing as how we all live on the same planet, we all experience a similar *constant* of time (as measured by commonly utilized means of tracking time). Any fluctuations in measured time that I might experience in comparison to you, or anyone else in the world, are probably so minute as to be indiscernible. Nonetheless, there are fluctuations, and time is not Universally constant.
Oh and...
Of course we need chemical reactions for life to exist - physical life anyway. Unless we're talking about the spirit world or something, all living things have constant chemical reactions.
If I'm wrong in this, please provide an example of something that is alive without a chemical reaction occuring.Kim
about 2 weeks ago · Report
Thanks for the research on the effects of gravity on time. It filled a gaping hole in the matrix of my knowledge base; one of many, I hasten to add.Sort of repeating, how many besides Aaron and myself would like Bruce's self-image issues to only be discussed in threads unto themselves, and not allowed in to pirate threads about what other people consider to be philosophical topics?
about 2 weeks ago · ReportDusting this one off with a fresh question regarding time: Does the concept of time travel and/or visions of the future inherently assume a certain level of determinism? Feel free to bring in your favorite sci-fi quotes and summaries on this one.
about 2 weeks ago · ReportIf only I don't have to urgently wrap up a report and evaluation on units of work I taught recently David. After Friday, i can indulge this interest on the paradoxes of time. If you have 'time' to read these background readings for discussion later, it'll be great!
about 2 weeks ago · Delete Post
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-machine/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-thermo/
&
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel-phys/
Oh yes, great to get back to speculation about time.
about a week ago · Delete Post
In another thread on 'self'. I touched on the idea that time affected our notions of selfhood which brings to mind a question, does time have a flavour? What I mean by flavour is that, could they have changed their decisions if they know stuff that we do now and, therefore, changed the current reality and in doing that changed what happened then and so changed the character of that particular period of time and our own as well?
Could our perceptions of different eras be different to how people activated and perceived their time on earth or that would they have different notions of how we would think, now compared to how they speculated on our current experience, in the old days? It seems to me that the answer can be yes (probably in my case it would be yes) or no. What do you think?
'Time is difficult to understand because it is difficult to define.' I'm not sure if I said that or you did Bruce.
about a week ago · Delete Post
The quote is not quite true now after reading everyone's posts, I can define time by listing our intimate relations with time or you could say how we experience time. We can also define and discuss what happened to us as direct result of the passing of time retrospectively after the event but not as it happened because we are too busy and that our brains are designed to handle one thing at a time as Lyman stated a while back. We can also directly know the effects of temporal experiences (something or events that has a beginning and end) because we know and go through the passing of time. It is also possible because I can hear the ticking of the clock or hear my own heartbeat. This is how I have no doubt at all that time has passed and that I am experiencing time, even if I cannot see it.
What is interesting to me is how you see time passing or how time affects you as a person who thinks. For example what do you do with your time? Some people keep track of their time by collecting objects that remind them of the the time in the past, even if they don't realise that that this is why they collect things as mementoes, after the fact that they like those things in themselves.
Conclusions
This was the end of the discussions. The reasons why it stopped could be due to several reasons and the subject of my speculations in this conclusion. It was not a waste of my time and that I found it useful to question my assumptions about reality and the source of the continuing narrative of my life and the external world, which I know exist because it impinges upon my awareness. I also know that time exist because this is the record of the discussion about time. Another view is that time in itself as an entity does not exist, which also implies to me that reality (nature including myself as a sentient writer of this blog) does not exist, posing the semantics epistemology as evidence, contrary to my view that time does exist and tangible based on subjective and post-priori examples, relative to the observer. You, the reader, can make your own conclusion from the above discussion. What was plain to me was that researchers (physicists in particular) found the time and space a very engrossing and fascinating subject and that the discussion above was merely scratching the surface.
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