Thread: Time - totally subjective?

If a clock was real. That's what it would look like. It's scary to think everyone around you doesn't agree with this clock. It makes you a real skeptic.

I've noticed this with commercials on television. The first time I watch it, they are slower. Anyone else feel as if this happens?

At any rate, I do think we can alter our perception of time slightly, depending on the situation. I don't think it's possible to stretch time to the extent that many new-agers hope for. I doubt our biological confines can do that.

Time exists. I have a clock next to me, that's proof.

Isn't time also effected by speed?

I mean, I read somewhere that if you were to go to a planet that spins faster than earth for a year or something, then if you were to come back, you would be a year older then others?

I think it had something to do with lightyears...

Originally Posted by slayer

Isn't time also effected by speed?

I mean, I read somewhere that if you were to go to a planet that spins faster than earth for a year or something, then if you were to come back, you would be a year older then others?

I think it had something to do with lightyears...

Yeah, that's a big part of the theory of relativity. Though I haven't even tried to understand relativity so I could never explain how or why.

Yes. It's relatively (lel) easy to understand. Basically the laws of physics are independent of your velocity, so that means that the speed electromagnetic waves (light) must always be measured to be the same. Think about it; this means that if you travel at the speed of light relative to some point of reference, you will never catch up with a beam of light because irregardless of your velocity that beam will always travel away from you at the speed of light. Even weirder in some ways, even if you travel at the speed of light towards an incoming beam of light, you will not measure that light's speed as double what is normal, but still exactly the same.

We all know that speed = distance / time; as speed remains constant, it turns out that what happens when you are moving to explain this effect is that the time actually changes.

If you travel at almost the speed of light away from Earth and back again for say 10 years, when you return a whole century could have passed.

About the OP: I find such subjects very interesting. I reckon causality and hence time is intrinsic to consciousness, but I am not sure how. I'll answer the question with a question of my own:

Imagine you log the activity of your brain throughout your life on a computer. If you play this activity back (ie. simulate it), you'd imagine that 'inside' the machine is a conscious experiencer. The question is this: what if you played the log back twice as slow? Wouldn't one thought take twice as long, and so the the world would pass twice as fast relative to the consciousness? And of course the killer question; what if you played the log backwards? Would the consciousness be going back in time?