Whether a past or future exist is questionable. Whether time exists as to a forward progressing of events, yes that certainly is true. Lets take spacetime right now and Mr. Hippo with his friend Aurrup the seal. Aurrup the seal is intelligent and knows that time is a real thing. Mr. Hippo disagrees because Mr. Hippo is a silly mammal. Aurrup wants to prove to the hippo that time exists. This is how he does it. Aurrup gets Mr. Hippo and himself on a spaceship and launches towards a blackhole. Upon arrival to within 10,000 km of the blackhole, Aurrup the seal jetisons Mr. Hippo out of the ship, to what the hippo thinks will be a great sun tanning experience. Unbeknowest to the hippo, Aurrup sent the hippo towards the blackhole. As Mr. Hippo approaches the event horizon of the singularity, his body starts to stretch out and he moves at an accelerating rate towards the horizon. But to Aurrup the seal, the hippo looks as if he is slowing down. At a point, it will look to Aurrup the seal as if the hippo actually stopped moving. In fact, Aurrup knows he'll never see the hippo fall into the horizon. This doesn't comfort Mr. Hippo too much because he has already crossed the event horizon and his matter is very scrambled, but then it turns out to be okay. His molecules reform and he learns that he is now in Sausage Land. With sausage everywhere, the hippo frolics and eats meat. Aurrup will never see the hippo in Sausage Land though, because to Aurrup's frame of reference, the hippo has stopped moving and will never visually cross the horizon even when the hippo already had.
What does this tell us? It tells us that time can perceivably flow slower from one frame of reference to another without dealing with the speed of light. Because the seal saw a slower progression of time of the hippo than the hippo experienced himself, there is no doubt that time exists. Now as I said before, a past and future may not physically exist, but we know that time exists.

I know we want one more example. Mr. Hippo, even after his trip to Sausage Land is skeptical about time. So Aurrup builds a building that is 500 floors tall. Aurrup lives in animated suspension at the top floor while the hippo does so at the bottom floor. 1,000,000,000 years pass, but the hippo has aged more as witness to his beard. Aurrup is old, but because time flows slower at higher elevations, though it be a miniscule difference, there is a different amount of time flow.

Time does exist.

• Re: Re: No such thing as time, present only as we react with it... - gwynj - December 8, 2000 - 01:24 UTC
  • Depends on situation for noticable change - richard - December 8, 2000 - 21:01 UTC
    • Re: Depends on situation for noticable change - gwynj - December 10, 2000 - 01:08 UTC
      • Re: Re: Depends on situation for noticable change - richard - December 10, 2000 - 03:33 UTC
        • Re: Re: Re: Depends on situation for noticable change - gwynj - December 10, 2000 - 19:19 UTC
          • Ahhh. - richard - December 10, 2000 - 21:36 UTC
    • Re: Depends on situation for noticable change - equation - December 10, 2000 - 15:31 UTC