
The Unreality of Time - vinchuco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time
======
kenbellows
McTaggart's objection to the B-series sounds equally applicable to space. As I
understand it, B-series conceptions of time consider it essentially another
dimension. The summary of McTaggart's objection could be rephrased:

> [spacial dimensions] involves change, but because [north-south]
> relationships never change (e.g. [Atlanta] is always [South of New York]),
> [geometry] must be an inadequate account of [space].

~~~
kenbellows
Then again, McTaggart was an idealist, so he might actually try to lodge that
sort of objection.

------
ommunist
Thomas Metzinger studying phenomena of neural correlates wrote "The Ego
Tunnel". After reading his book I realised that perceived time and space and
perception itself are just complicated models, run on our wetware, and these
are result of evolution by abaptation, including culture as factor. So there
is no 'time'. But for convenience, we can assume that it is. Otherwise who
shall buy watches?

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eli_gottlieb
If time is an illusion, what explains the illusion? What's the illusion made
of? How can I get more of it, or lose it?

Sure, there are time-dilation effects in special and general relativity, but
those are theories that explicitly mention time and timelike dimensions. Time,
in those theories, is not at all an illusion.

So: if it's an illusion, _what is the illusion made of?_

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
One explanation I picked up in a book some time ago was that the illusion
could be explained as a series of moments (like the frames of a movie), due to
the fact that each such moment contained an encoding of the previous frame
(your memory) and an anticipation of future frames (your expectations) the
illusion that the individual moments are connected in a linear progression
emerges, much like the illusion of motion emerges from watching movie frames.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Just brain dumping here but I have this thought that maybe the universe
unfolds like a grammar. You start with a description of everything that can
exist according to some laws of physics, if you do this recursively, like a
grammar. You would have a root node (this would be the Big Bang) from there
you generate every possible state.

This would result in a tree where each node (present) is either the Big Bang
or hangs of some other tree (the past) and has branches for each possible
configuration (futures) to generate from that state.

------
lingben
This 1908 paper he wrote in the journal 'Mind: A Quarterly Review of
Psychology and Philosophy' is a little bit clearer on his meaning:

[http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html](http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html)

But it still comes across as a bit too much like 'woo' or maybe I just don't
understand his way of explaining his idea.

From a university lecture slide note:

"His central philosophical conviction was that reality was fundamentally
spiritual; and his central aim was to show this by deriving contradictions
from the assumption that the material world exists"

[https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2009-10/20229/LECTURES/...](https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2009-10/20229/LECTURES/4-mctaggart.pdf)

------
dghf
Written three years after Einstein's paper on special relativity, which kills
the idea of an absolute order of events (if they're far enough apart in
space). Would McTaggart have had knowledge of Einstein's work?

~~~
lnanek2
His education is in morals and logic and his conclusion in subsequent books is
that everything is related by souls. I would say even if he had heard of or
read about real science regarding spacetime, he wouldn't even have been able
to understand it anyway. It would be like an alchemist understanding atomic
numbers and nuclei, they are completely different fields.

~~~
dempseye
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism)

------
zitterbewegung
"time" may not exist but the second law of thermodynamics does and cycles that
humans observe in the second law of thermodynamics is what we usually use to
measure time.

------
howeyc
I thought it's been known for a while that "time" isn't exactly a property of
the Universe the same way as 3 dimensions are, but more something we use to
help ourselves understand and explain the actions around us.

That is, "time" doesn't exist, but we created it.

I really wish I remembered where I read ideas such as this, but I think most
of it came as a consequence of Relativity theory.

~~~
globuous
I thought general relativity actually proved that time was a fundamental
dimension of our universe [1]. I'm really unsure because I have never studied
general relativity, but I thought it used Reimanian geometry [2] to solve a
bunch of things using 4D manifolds [3]. Is the reason you say that a
consequence of relativity theory is that time isn't exactly a property of the
universe because the 4 variables of spacetime are all distances [(c*t, x, y,
z)] as opposed to having 3 variables being distances and one time [(t, x, y,
z)]? Or is it simply because Relativity proves that time isn't universal etc ?

> That is, "time" doesn't exist, but we created it. Honnestly, I very much
> like the Wikipedia introductory paragraph on time: "Time is a measure in
> which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the
> future, and also the measure of durations of events and the intervals
> between them" [4] I think time is just a measure used when describing
> dynamic systems (where past, present, and future make sense). Assume for a
> moment that the Big Bang happened at t = t_BB, and assume that for all t <
> t_BB, there was absolutely nothing in the universe and nothing was
> happening. Would time make sense in such a pre-Big Bang universe ? I think
> time is a fundamental property of a dynamic system because without it, the
> said system would not be dynamic. I'm not sure however that time is a
> fundamental property of the universe. Maybe of a dynamic universe ? In which
> case time would be a fundamental property of our current universe, in
> accordance with Einstein's theory or relativity, but not in a pre-Big Bang
> universe such as the one mentioned just a few lines ago.

Finally, from the article: > McTaggart argues that time is unreal because our
descriptions of time are either contradictory, circular, or insufficient I
think Einstein would probably agree with him in that time is at least
contradictory [5]. Although I'm not sure they would mean that in the same way.
To take McTaggart's A-series argument: > Specifically, [McTaggart] argues that
since every event that occurs will at one time be the future, at another time
be the present, and at a third time (and forever henceforth) be past, every
event exemplifies or instantiates every temporal property: futurity,
presentness, and pastness. Since these properties are mutually exclusive (they
cannot be co-instantiated), the A-series conception of time generates an
absurdity, a contradiction. If both parts of his argument are sound, then time
must just be an illusion; it has no genuine ontological status. I disagree
with this logic. Notions of past, present, and future are mutually exclusive
at any given time t; but events can of course go from future to present to
past. It just can't be more than one at the same time. Kinda like when you're
sprinting a 100m race, you can't be before, on top, and after the finish line
at the same instant. But you can go from one to the other without questioning
the notion of distance. The analogy is far from perfect, but that's how I see
it. I may have misunderstood his argument though.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemannian_geometry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemannian_geometry)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-manifold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-manifold)
[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time)
[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment)

~~~
howeyc
> Is the reason you say that a consequence of relativity theory is that time
> isn't exactly a property of the universe because the 4 variables of
> spacetime are all distances [(c*t, x, y, z)] as opposed to having 3
> variables being distances and one time [(t, x, y, z)]? Or is it simply
> because Relativity proves that time isn't universal etc ?

Yes, pretty much that. The "units" of z remain constant/consistent independent
of the values of x,y. However, t, cannot be thought of separately in the same
way. The experience of/speed of/duration of/distance of/... of t is dependent
upon the x,y,z location.

------
AnimalMuppet
All this really shows is that our descriptions of time are inadequate, not
that time is unreal. In essence, he's confusing the map with the territory.
He's arguing that, because the map is inadequate, the territory must not
exist.

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amelius
> Attacking the A-series, McTaggart argues that any event in the A-series is
> past, present, and future, which is contradictory in that each of those
> properties excludes the other two.

Can somebody please explain the logic used here, because I got lost here?

~~~
kenbellows
P1. Any given moment must be designated past, present, or future.

P2. The designations "past", "present", and "future" are a true trichotomy,
such that it is impossible for any moment to _not_ have any of these
designations.

P3. The designations "past", "present", and "future" are mutually exclusive;
it is impossible for a moment to be in the past and the future, the future and
the present, etc.

P4. According to the A-Series model of time, every moment is at some point
designated future, present, and past.

C. From (P3) and (P4), via _reductio ad absurdum_ , an A-Series interpretation
of time produces a contradiction.

I don't buy it because (P3) is more accurately phrased "it is impossible for a
moment to be in the past and the future, the future and the present, etc.
_simultaneously_ " and (P4) is better phrased "every moment is at some point
designated future, present, and past, _but never simultaneously_ ", so (C)
breaks down.

~~~
danbruc
_The designations "past", "present", and "future" are a true trichotomy [...]_

This is at least in some sense wrong - past, present and future are no
absolute things but only defined relative to the moment in time one calls
present and therefore there are many pasts, presents and futures.

 _The designations "past", "present", and "future" are mutually exclusive
[...]_

This in turn is only true if one is referring to the past, present and future
defined relative to the same present. Today is in the future of yesterday and
in the past of tomorrow.

All in all past, present and future are binary relations, not unary ones.
Mystery solved.

~~~
kenbellows
> past, present and future are no absolute things but only defined relative to
> the moment in time one calls present and therefore there are many pasts,
> presents and futures.

That's basically what I meant when I said "(P3) is more accurately phrased 'it
is impossible for a moment to be in the past and the future, the future and
the present, etc. _simultaneously_ '".

> only true if one is referring to the past, present and future defined
> relative to the same present. Today is in the future of yesterday and in the
> past of tomorrow.

That's basically what I meant when I said "(P4) is better phrased 'every
moment is at some point designated future, present, and past, but never
_simultaneously_ '".

So yeah, I think we're on the same page :)

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fengwick3
What I don't understand is the validity of these arguments. The very language
it's presented in casts doubts (at least in my mind) of its rigor. Do these
arguments actually hold water?

~~~
oldmanjay
I'm not sure how charitable I have to be here. Let's say I personally don't
find any of this convincing at all, and I don't feel a single statement rises
to the level of an actual argument. It's gobbledygook.

------
rokhayakebe
What other "things" that "do not exist" everybody experiences "similarly?"

~~~
kenbellows
Color, probably

~~~
ommunist
oh man. Color perception is pure biology. You can train neural networks in
your brain for distinguishing colours. Average Japanese sees more than one
hundred colours, where average British sees only "black". Not to forget
tetrachromatic vision inherited by some human females.

