The power of time

[Michel]

_this sentence from Biology & genetics news feeds in this forum.
"The assumption that time, weather, and pollution are what cause buildings to decline is only partly true."

Here, time is perfectly disconnected from weather.

There are 4 known interactions in physics. These are 1. the electromagnetic, 2 the strong subatomical interaction, 3 the weak, 4 the gravity.
Time is not mentioned as an interaction. Time is not a physical force.

So, really, does time possess any power?

[Ben Burkhill]

I would postulate that time is only a man made measuring concept - the others are effective 'over/given time' but time is ineffective of its own accord.

[Symptom777]

when people say time has caused decline they mean entropy.
And entropy manifests itself as those seemingly small damages caused by the forces you mention for no particular reason other than shit happens, and the more time that passes the more can happen.

Like your brand new car, which you lovingly look after for the first few months and it always looks like new, until one day a bird shits on the roof and the shit discolours the paintwork, and then you're driving behind a truck and it flicks up a stone - and what the hell was that stone doing on the road in any case - and it takes a chip out of the bonnet, and then some kid drives past your parked car on a bicycle and he gets distracted and runs the brake lever down the door, and then you go out with your mates and park up and one of them sits on the bootlid and dents it, and then someone keys the other door, and there's rust coming through on the stone chip, and then you get stopped by the cops because your brake lights aren't working, and a leaf gets blown into your fresh air intake and you can hear it every time you turn on the fan - chk chk chk, and you park up on a nail and it takes out your tyre, and suddenly your car isn't so new anymore, and you let your mates smoke in it and one of them drops his ciggy on the stool and there's a hole in the fabric, and then the rear view mirror starts sliding south every couple of miles, and you forgot to replace the spare and you get another puncture and you're stranded on the highway, so you go for help and when you get back to your car someone has removed all the badges, and when you go to the supermarket some bastard in a 4x4 uses your car as a door stop and you got a crease in the wing, and then you park up in the multi-storey and don't see the curb - which they put there just because they can and it doesn't actually do anything - except - rip a piece out of your tyre's sidewall and dent the wheel rim and you still haven't got a spare, and now you're pissed off and driving home fast and some stupid dog runs out in front of you and you brake and get rear-ended by some jackass in some piece of shit american car that's only value is that it weighs two tons and the front end is made out of weapon grade titanium, and the insurance company tells you that you shouldn't brake for dogs and you have to pay half, and then you wonder what that funny smell is and you realise you still haven't ditched the dog which you couldn't leave on the road and put in your trunk, and it's infested with maggots so you haul it out together with the piece of carpet lining and ditch it and remember you still haven't got a spare tyre, and now whenever you drive you can hear the road noise coming through the trunk - which acts like a sound box - because the carpet AND the tyre are missing, and so you turn the radio up real loud and then you can't hear the police siren behind you and you can't see the police car either because your mirror is still facing south and you get pulled over and get a ticket for speeding, and another one for not stopping, and another one for the ripped tyre, and another one for the missing spare and they ask you what the funny smell is and you tell them about the dog but they aren't buying it, so they take you in and impound your car and when they finally release you all the insides of you car have been ripped out and put back by a monkey on acid, and just for a lugh the mechanic has drained the engine oil and you get about one and a half miles before you hear a small clunk and the engine seizes solid and you skid out of control into a fire hydrant which takes out the other rear wing and the water streaming from the hydrant comes in through the window and although you dry it out the windows won't wind anymore, and you had to borrow a grand to fix the engine, and your car is a total heap and you can't make the loan repayments and so you sell the car and all you get for it is 500 bucks because it's so shit, and now you got no money and no car and your girlfriend dumps you because you're a loser, and you go to your brother to see if he can help you, but his wife is pregnant with the third kid and he just lost his job as an insurance assessor because his figures were below average - and now the whole market's collapsed - and he can't even buy the groceries so you give him the last ten bucks you had and walk home in the rain and when you get a block away you can see a strange glow in the sky and you can here sirens and screaming and shouting, and as you turn the corner you see your appartment on fire and the in your imagination you see the crumpled up last demand from the insurance company which you chucked into the bin along with your cigarette stub, and you fall to your knees in despair, and everyone is shouting at you and pointing and then the ambulance comes around the corner and you wake up in hospital and the nurse is asking you about insurance but you can't feel your legs but you can feel the pipe draining your lungs through your nose,a nd you black out and wake up five minutes later only you're in a different room and you can hear whispering and the beep beep beep of a heart monitor and you still can't feel your legs and you start to panic and the beeps grow faster and someone rushes in and you try and ask them "what the fuck is happening", but all that comes out is a dry croak and four hours later you're sitting at the window having a glass of water looking at buildings you can't recognise and your hands are strangely grey and just plain old looking and someon is telling you that you've been in a coma for 15 years and all you want is your mum to come and rescue you only she died 4 years ago and your dad died a year later and your brother committed suicide, and your sitting in a wheel chair thinking about that fucking car and how you wished you'd never bought it, and the people are telling you that you're a living miracle but you don't believe them and the next day you wheel yourself to the top of the stairs and make your last journey.

That's entropy.

[slippery_soap]

Originally Posted by Symptom777

when people say time has caused decline they mean entropy.
And entropy manifests itself as those seemingly small damages caused by the forces you mention for no particular reason other than shit happens, and the more time that passes the more can happen.

Like your brand new car, which you lovingly look after for the first few months and it always looks like new, until one day a bird shits on the roof and the shit discolours the paintwork, and then you're driving behind a truck and it flicks up a stone - and what the hell was that stone doing on the road in any case - and it takes a chip out of the bonnet, and then some kid drives past your parked car on a bicycle and he gets distracted and runs the brake lever down the door, and then you go out with your mates and park up and one of them sits on the bootlid and dents it, and then someone keys the other door, and there's rust coming through on the stone chip, and then you get stopped by the cops because your brake lights aren't working, and a leaf gets blown into your fresh air intake and you can hear it every time you turn on the fan - chk chk chk, and you park up on a nail and it takes out your tyre, and suddenly your car isn't so new anymore, and you let your mates smoke in it and one of them drops his ciggy on the stool and there's a hole in the fabric, and then the rear view mirror starts sliding south every couple of miles, and you forgot to replace the spare and you get another puncture and you're stranded on the highway, so you go for help and when you get back to your car someone has removed all the badges, and when you go to the supermarket some bastard in a 4x4 uses your car as a door stop and you got a crease in the wing, and then you park up in the multi-storey and don't see the curb - which they put there just because they can and it doesn't actually do anything - except - rip a piece out of your tyre's sidewall and dent the wheel rim and you still haven't got a spare, and now you're pissed off and driving home fast and some stupid dog runs out in front of you and you brake and get rear-ended by some jackass in some piece of shit american car that's only value is that it weighs two tons and the front end is made out of weapon grade titanium, and the insurance company tells you that you shouldn't brake for dogs and you have to pay half, and then you wonder what that funny smell is and you realise you still haven't ditched the dog which you couldn't leave on the road and put in your trunk, and it's infested with maggots so you haul it out together with the piece of carpet lining and ditch it and remember you still haven't got a spare tyre, and now whenever you drive you can hear the road noise coming through the trunk - which acts like a sound box - because the carpet AND the tyre are missing, and so you turn the radio up real loud and then you can't hear the police siren behind you and you can't see the police car either because your mirror is still facing south and you get pulled over and get a ticket for speeding, and another one for not stopping, and another one for the ripped tyre, and another one for the missing spare and they ask you what the funny smell is and you tell them about the dog but they aren't buying it, so they take you in and impound your car and when they finally release you all the insides of you car have been ripped out and put back by a monkey on acid, and just for a lugh the mechanic has drained the engine oil and you get about one and a half miles before you hear a small clunk and the engine seizes solid and you skid out of control into a fire hydrant which takes out the other rear wing and the water streaming from the hydrant comes in through the window and although you dry it out the windows won't wind anymore, and you had to borrow a grand to fix the engine, and your car is a total heap and you can't make the loan repayments and so you sell the car and all you get for it is 500 bucks because it's so shit, and now you got no money and no car and your girlfriend dumps you because you're a loser, and you go to your brother to see if he can help you, but his wife is pregnant with the third kid and he just lost his job as an insurance assessor because his figures were below average - and now the whole market's collapsed - and he can't even buy the groceries so you give him the last ten bucks you had and walk home in the rain and when you get a block away you can see a strange glow in the sky and you can here sirens and screaming and shouting, and as you turn the corner you see your appartment on fire and the in your imagination you see the crumpled up last demand from the insurance company which you chucked into the bin along with your cigarette stub, and you fall to your knees in despair, and everyone is shouting at you and pointing and then the ambulance comes around the corner and you wake up in hospital and the nurse is asking you about insurance but you can't feel your legs but you can feel the pipe draining your lungs through your nose,a nd you black out and wake up five minutes later only you're in a different room and you can hear whispering and the beep beep beep of a heart monitor and you still can't feel your legs and you start to panic and the beeps grow faster and someone rushes in and you try and ask them "what the fuck is happening", but all that comes out is a dry croak and four hours later you're sitting at the window having a glass of water looking at buildings you can't recognise and your hands are strangely grey and just plain old looking and someon is telling you that you've been in a coma for 15 years and all you want is your mum to come and rescue you only she died 4 years ago and your dad died a year later and your brother committed suicide, and your sitting in a wheel chair thinking about that fucking car and how you wished you'd never bought it, and the people are telling you that you're a living miracle but you don't believe them and the next day you wheel yourself to the top of the stairs and make your last journey.

That's entropy.

LOL please don't tell me u typed all that..

[Ben Burkhill]

That was a fucking fantastic read Symptom - laughed my hole out - thankyou.

[Ben Burkhill]

bump.

[Michel]

This is not entropy, this is pessimism*.

Although I enjoyed the reading, not any one of your misfortune (you must have lived some) has anything to do with time.
What your description has to do with is that it follows the principle of irreversebility.
When something happens, you can't do nothing to make it never happened. This has to do with entropy. This is not exactly entropy.
Irreversebility is a property of what we call "time".
An unexplained property.

Ben proposed "I would postulate that time is only a man made measuring concept - the others are effective 'over/given time' but time is ineffective of its own accord. "

O.K. Let's postulate that time is only a measurement. Let's say that time simply does'nt exist as a physical entity. In this case, irreversebility must be somewhere else. In entropy? But entropy is a postulate based on observation. Why is'nt it negative entropy? Nothing theorically forbiddens negative entropy. Where is irreversebility?

[Symptom777]

Irreversibility IS time.

Entropy - and time - are contained within the laws of thermodynamics.

[imagine]

time = tie me = your choice? = anywhere within limits (that you set?)

entropy = in trophy = in your dream

thermo dynamic = jiggling room to move = "doesn't have to be bracketed" = "shift, frequency" = outer limits = "the law" ?

"Law of thermodynamics" = law of the law(s) = space negotiation? = navigating with spare

[imagine]

optimism?????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????

???????????????????????????????????

?

[Ben Burkhill]

Originally Posted by Symptom

Entropy - and time - are contained within the laws of thermodynamics.

Hence an ice cube will melt in a glass of warm water but you cannot make ice cubes from a glass of water by freezing it - or - you can make an omlette from eggs but can't make eggs from an omlette. The arrows of time.

But you do get a chicken laying an egg which produces a chicken - evolution is the struggle against entropy, life is the counter of entropy but still prone to its effects. Interestingly the biosphere was born of the single cell and combats time by reproducing - the individuals die but the biosphere entity continues.

[Bobbo]

Originally Posted by Ben Burkhill

Hence an ice cube will melt in a glass of warm water but you cannot make ice cubes from a glass of water by freezing it - or - you can make an omlette from eggs but can't make eggs from an omlette. The arrows of time.
...

Not the arrows of time. The arrows of process. And our ability to effect a change in state - process - might improve to the point where we could make ice cubes in a glass of water or eggs from an omlette, if we had sufficient incentive.

[Bobbo]

Originally Posted by Michel

... What your description has to do with is that it follows the principle of irreversebility.
When something happens, you can't do nothing to make it never happened. This has to do with entropy. This is not exactly entropy.
Irreversebility is a property of what we call "time".
An unexplained property.

Ben proposed "I would postulate that time is only a man made measuring concept - the others are effective 'over/given time' but time is ineffective of its own accord. "

O.K. Let's postulate that time is only a measurement. Let's say that time simply does'nt exist as a physical entity. In this case, irreversebility must be somewhere else. In entropy? But entropy is a postulate based on observation. Why is'nt it negative entropy? Nothing theorically forbiddens negative entropy. Where is irreversebility?

Every change in state in any object occurs within the object's environment. That environment is the universe. And you are exactly correct in saying "When something happens, you can't do nothing to make it never happened."

In order to put the changed object and its environment back to the original state, we would have to do something which would leave no indication that we had done anything. Our perception of the way the universe works doesn't allow this. And even if it were possible to reverse a change without some evidence of it, the fact that there would be no evidence of it would mean that we couldn't know about it.

This implies that irreversibility, like time, is a perception which is dependent upon the way we are constructed. The fact that we can reverse the direction of a clock, or any other process, has no influence on our perception of time.

Our perception of time is the recognition of changes in an object - us - relative to changes in our surroundings. We need recognition of change in both ourselves and the things around us to gage time. Waking from a sleep with no reference to external events leaves us with little idea of the passage of time. And no change or very rapid change in our surroundings may leave us a bit confused even if we have been aware while the changes occured.

The fact that we quantify our perceptions of changes based on the apparent regularity of changes in certain objects, something we do in order to have a convenient shared reference, does not lend any credence to an arguement that time is a "thing" in and of itself with some independent existence.

[spacedout]

What is a thing if it doesn't move? We are an identity of movement against whatever? I still say that movement is distance, time and energy all in one.

[Michel]

Back to the first question: does time has any power?

Ben answered.he said:
1."I would postulate that time is only a man made measuring concept -(...)"
2."time is ineffective of its own accord."

Point 1 postulates that if mankind disappears, time will disappear too. Is that correct? It also proposes the notion of time as a measuring concept.
Point 2. in relation with point 1. is another way to say that time does not exist.

This was my position a few years ago.
But I changed my mind.
Because you cannot negate something that is " contained within the laws of thermodynamics" as Symptom said.
Time must be "something". Maybe not matter, but something like a motion (as it is described) or like a substract. It cannot be nothing. (can you measure "nothing"?)