Re: recursive definition of time

From: Mike (eleatis_at_yahoo.gr)
Date: 08/08/04 

Date: 8 Aug 2004 11:01:36 -0700

"Bill Hobba" <bhobba@rubbish.net.au> wrote in message news:<FyhRc.39866$K53.20380@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...

[snip defense of common sense}

> Now as to how human beings developed the intuitive notion of this thing we
> call time I leave to experts in such eg psychologists and evolutionary
> biologists.

No, leave it to astronomers please. Let's not do that psycho or bio
routine again. The notion of time was developed from the observation
of repeatitive astronomical events, such as the moon phases and earth
seasons. It's a purely empirical notion. And I despice anti-realist's
attempts to invoke psychological or neuropsychological factors.

There are many different definition sof time. One is the experiments
physicist's time where the frequency of a standard process is used to
determine the frequency of a target process.

There is also the notion of time as a fundamental quantity in physics.
Now, Hobba's description is not enough to privide an account. If time
is adopted as a fundamental quantity we are led to questions about
whether it is absolute, it has an arrow of direction and whether time
is a matter of convention or there is universal time.

Now the experimentalist will protest. "This is philosophy" he cries.
The experimentalist is often too naive. He forgets that the
experiments he is working on rest on some theoretical theorization
which some account of spacetime is assumed. If the account changes so
will the experiments. In other words, the experimentalist is a slave
of the prevailing philosophical views regarding time (and spacetime).

Mike

what about: time is money?

Mike

>
> Thanks
> Bill
>
> >
> > Bob Kolker
> >

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