Green !StaYqkzUPc started this discussion 3 years ago#105,746
Think about it. There's an infinite amount of halfways. 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 7.5 seconds, you can keep halving it indefinitely. Does this mean that there is an infinite amount of time between time or time doesn't even exist?
Anonymous B double-posted this 3 years ago, 6 minutes later, 32 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,188,249
@1,188,244 (Dick Minichan™ !Memes4aSuc)
also, Zeno's entire point was "of course what I am saying is absurdist nonsense, but unless you can disprove it then everything else you believe is nonsense".
Anonymous B triple-posted this 3 years ago, 6 minutes later, 39 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,188,250
oh and then in response all of the other philosophers backpedaled and redefined several terms... they would be considered WOKE and LIBRUL today for that
Anonymous B quadruple-posted this 3 years ago, 1 minute later, 40 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,188,251
ackshuallly, when i said infinity earlier i was really thinking about a different concept... not those small infinities, just the heckin chonker infinity... you know, the one we always meant the entire time, right guys?
Buni joined in and replied with this 3 years ago, 9 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,188,257
ohai
Work with clocks long enough and you'll see enough time to notice that as it passes not enough of it exists to last long enough for now. Clocks are tricky. You glance at the time and get your temporal bearings and that gives you an idea of where you are the same as any map, or know your general heading through maybe like a compass keeps you headed any which way through space. Sit and watch a clock count through 10,800 ticks of a second hand. that's just 3 hours to a clockmaker. it's an eternity to sit through for anyone that's not interested in finding a particular moment in the mechanism that hangs up irregularly.
Trying to observe that moment in the present stops feeling like now is a moment that has any meaningful duration. What will be becomes what was and you straddle between time like it's a reflection between two mirrors. Time in physics is a measure of the amount of change in a formula that's answering other questions. time may not be a thing. It may just be emergent phenomenon from some process. Maybe there's a bulk universe and past and future are always there, there's lots of different ideas. and you'll still never catch a moment of it.
You'll just see that it's gone and you'll start to lose your stomach for the freefall. if we passed through space similarly how quickly would the ground beneath you be travelling as you skipped across the surface from one point to another? the nonsense answer is that we pass through time at the speed of light. But we don't really have the right questions to get at sensical answers. there's just nothing to grasp onto to steady yourself. so you grasp onto other things and where you are at least feels like a when.
Wherever you go, there you are. And 1,800 moments have slipped away. 9,000 to go and what seemed like a stupid number to watch tick away suddenly seem like no sweat, and each long seconds you stare into the maw seems creep by. unless you're paying attention they're gone in huge number.
86,400 moments went by yesterday. stare at a clock and see each second and how long can you do it before you feel like you're wasting a lot of time. you'll get bored pretty quick, you're not stopping your day to count to 360 slowly, you'll get antsy. it's hard to do. 604,800 of them were experienced completely though in a week. That's above my paygrade amounts of counting. 10,800, that's what gave me an existential crisis about where now was.
that slog through watched moments makes you think there's plenty of now for you to hang onto. and lots of later for all the things that we work for. gonna go, gonna do, gonna see, all these things are coming up. but i'm tired, i'll do it later. no biggie.
And it's not, you have shit to so, you're usually busy, something going on now. you hold onto your tasks in the immediate future, you're jamming out on the way to work, or focused on tasks, kicking it with your coffee on the patio, or you just start talking about something pointlessly and hope for the best you're not just prattling on.
2,419,200 ticks of a clock come off sounding hollow when you think how many times something has ever been put off till next month. no where close to 10,800 which sounded like a big number less than an hour ago. fuck no i'm not wasting 3 hours staring at seconds. you've got way to much to do to waste time like that. that was my day job as a clockmaker. counting seconds is just busywork.
if you want to feel the freefall, hold on tight.
take ten minutes, busy people, feel 600 seconds. reaaaally savor them. watch them drag, and drag, and really feel it. let's feel them at the speed we're really going.
31,536,000 of those little eons was just last year. count to 600 seconds. if you do it, you're a steely eyed missile man. lets waste them and really feel it.
315,360,000 of those agonizing empty seconds. even inanimate clocks are starting to reach their limit of ability to count them off. a decade of moments.
630,720,000 and most clocks are toast. but that's just 20 years. it's hard to bear watching 10 minutes creep by when the point is to throw them away mindfully. it's hard to do. 3 hours was a marathon of sheer endurance and determination that makes me feel kinda a minor panic attack and is incredibly hard to think about ever attempting again.
1,216,440,000 is your 40th birthday. that's when i set my mind to mindfully and with all of my will power to feel 3 hours of nothing but pure nowness. that number is one billion and change. and i grieve for simply for just 3 hours. because of what they stand for. how long has it been since you had the time for someone you love who's been missing you
Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE joined in and replied with this 3 years ago, 4 hours later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,188,285
@1,188,241 (B)
His paradox might be of limited use, but you can't criticise his poetry! They reconstructed the game of tabula from one of his poems, you know.
And taking the treasury with him during that Basiliscus whole business, well that was just hilarious.
boof joined in and replied with this 3 years ago, 25 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,188,289
zeno's paradoxes suggest there is a smallest unit that we can not traverse smaller than. This may be Planck units, but in practical terms, you can't really traverse half an atomic radius or thereabouts, because your own vibrations or that of your atoms would carry you that distance whether you wanted to or not. An argument can be made also for a smallest unit of time, though what time really means is iffy. Anyhow, the gist is that the apparent continuous nature of things may not hold at the tiniest scale.
Anonymous J joined in and replied with this 3 years ago, 2 hours later, 8 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,188,291
"""time""" does not exist. its the human concept for movement->change.
this is unfortunately why its impossible to travel in time, as there is nothing to go back to. instead you would have to simulate reality 1:1 and then choose where to visit through your 'going into realities machine'. since this would create basically a parallel universe it wouldnt be time traveling but since it would be an exactly simulated 1:1 copy it would technically be indistinguishable.
> """time""" does not exist. its the human concept for movement->change. > this is unfortunately why its impossible to travel in time, as there is nothing to go back to. instead you would have to simulate reality 1:1 and then choose where to visit through your 'going into realities machine'. since this would create basically a parallel universe it wouldnt be time traveling but since it would be an exactly simulated 1:1 copy it would technically be indistinguishable.
You just yell really loud so everyone in the back of the auditorium can hear you "Hey everyone, we're fucking going back in time!" and then all the players and stagehands start 'moving backwards' to make things appear to be returning to the past.