Re: About time
- From: mluttgens@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 30 Aug 2006 06:19:09 -0700
Bill Hobba wrote:
"Gert Baars" <g.baars13@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:10966$44f4d68b$5038fb52$8465@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I may be a total rookie to physics but on a former question
here: 'What is Time' no one has an answer (and should not).
I beg to differ. I think you were given the correct answer - what a clock
reads. Beyond that your really into philosophy.
If time can not be understood then how can anything related
to time (like the whole lot) be 'understood' or discussed.
The above definition does nicely.
http://www.friesian.com/feynman.htm
'Now, one might ask, What is "mass"? What is "distance"? What is "time"? As
questions of physics these are going to be very different from similar
questions in philosophy. In physics, all one need say, to get started, is
that "mass resists acceleration" (intertial mass) or "mass exerts
gravitational attraction" (gravitational mass), that "distance is what we
measure with this rod," and that "time is what we measure with this clock."
Wow. These answers, of course, are not philosophically very satisfying. They
are all one needs, however, to start doing the science. And there is a
reason for that. Scientific explanations are logically only sufficient, not
necessary, to the phenomena. This means that they are enough to explain
something about what we are seeing, but that logically they are not the only
possible explanation and they do not explain everything about what we are
seeing. Indeed, explaining everything is a tall order, though it is what,
philosophically, we would like ultimately to have.'
Bill
Difficult to better comment.
Marecel Luttgens
.
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- From: Gert Baars
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- From: Bill Hobba
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