Wednesday, February 23, 2011
No Time?
People say that inside a black hole, there is no time. But what is time? How can we know for sure there is time? And if we did go into a black hole, what do you think would happen? What would the absence of time bring about?
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ReplyDeleteI think that there is time, but it can slow to a stop, speed to infinity, and disappear all together.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you go into a black hole, presumably you die. So are we going into the reincarnation/heaven and hell thing, or are we assuming that you don't die when you fly into the black hole.
ReplyDeleteI did an interesting current event about a year ago.
ReplyDeleteMany stories have told that, when you are falling, time seems to slow down. However, a scientist tested this by attaching a bracelet to a subjects arm that would project different numbers at a speed that was just beyond the point that your eyes would be able to recognize the numbers. Anyway, after attaching this bracelet to his subjects after which they would make a thirty foot drop. Even though, during the fall they felt as if time slowed down, they still could not recognize the numbers that were flashing on the bracelet. Therefore, time always goes at the same pace, but the human mind changes and bends time to make it seem shorter or longer.
Therefore, time may seem to stay still, or not exist at all, but time will always exist.
ReplyDeleteP-Slam:
ReplyDeleteWhat evidence do you have to back your support? In this blog, we are trying to argue for our points, not just say what you believe. Why do you think time can be modified or even destroyed?
Aragorn;
ReplyDeleteYou say time always exists, but at the center of a black hole, it doesn't. However, I think we would feel that there is time, because we have never lived without time, and like you said with the bracelet current event, humans bend time with their minds. This is why I think that we feel as IF there is time in the black hole, when there really isn't. As for the absence of time, I believe that what we call time is just a categorazation: day, week, month, year. We live by these categorazations, and inside the black hole, there is no dark and no light, and because of that, since we cannot categorize anything without light, I believe that in that way there is no time in a black hole.
1: Has anyone ever went into a black hole? If so, have they lived to tell the tale? Then have they directly stated that there is no time in a black hole?
ReplyDelete2: I agree with some of what you believe. For example, I think time itself is not manmade, but the ways that we measure and the names we give to these measurements are. There is no clearly defined way to label different measurements of time, but time keeps going at a constant speed, INDEPENDENT on whether you can see any light. Even without light, a watch will continue to keep going, indicating that there is no way to measure time, there is no way to track time, we have no notion of time, but time keeps going and moving on.
For example, put yourself in a blank room, with no way to keep time. Slowly, you begin to become unaware of time, and to YOU, time does not exist. But just because you cannot tell what time it is, how long it has been since you entered that room, or whether you're even sleeping during the night and not the day anymore, does not mean time does not exist.
If I may add a note here regarding some of our basics from the beginning of the philosophy class...basics we will return to by the way.
ReplyDeleteTime is an important philosophical topic but we should probably keep the discussion to the epistemological questions for now. The metaphysical questions about time get pretty deep, and as for the speculation on time existing or not in a black whole, we really are not capable (yet) of gathering that kind of data. Even Stephen Hawking is speculating.
You all bring up very good points, but let's keep the discussion to the human experience of time. I'll have more to say about time during our next philosophy meeting.
Briefly, time is a flow in which we exist. Some cognitive science studies have produced evidence that demonstrate our consciousness lives within a brief "window" of time...roughly one to two seconds in the past through one to two seconds in the future. So, as we speak with someone and interact with their consciousness, our minds are briefly involved in the past second or two and the next second or two (of course, the present is instantaneous).
We can discuss more about the metaphysical aspects of time and continue our discussion of the epistemological concerns some of you have raised.
I'm not sure time really exists. It's only humanity's perception, and our way of managing things such as day and night, month's and years. As well a our way of managing the things we do. It is true that there is no day and night in a black hole. However if it was possible to be conscious and functioning in a black hole the things we do would still seem to take time. For example if your homework takes you an hour, it would still take you an hour in a black hole. There would just be no clock to tell you did.
ReplyDeleteAragorn-
ReplyDeleteTo you, time is always the same, because that is all that you know. However, after you die, do you think that there will always be time? Are you saying that you believe that we will exist infinitely in time?
I am saying that time is just a perception. A black hole would not change your perception of it, neither would death. You'd still believe an hour was an hour, and a minute was a minute.
ReplyDeleteOh sorry that was to Aragorn I thought it was to me. Oh well I explained my post anyway,
ReplyDeleteP-slam:
ReplyDeleteDo you mean physically or mentally? I am a firm believer that after I die, time in the outside world will continue to tick at the same pace for the next generation as it was for me. However, mentally, I have no idea how time would go by. Your argument is just bringing us down the long, forked path of the argument of how you spend your time after death.
Squabs16:
I have a quick question. Why does everyone think that there is no day and night in a black hole? If you go into a black hole, you die. I realize that a black hole will swallow any and all light so the stars are blocked out. But why does everyone think you 1. live after going into a black hole and 2. the insides of a black hole is a blank room where you can do your homework? Can I insert in one of the things that Sandra J. Polk III said at the very top of this page, just below the large heading "No Time?":"People say that in a black hole, there is no time." First of all, people, not scientists, not philosophers, but PEOPLE, and second of all, they SAY, not proved, but said that there was no time in a black hole.
Also, Squabs, time is not only a perception, even though the human perception of time is what makes up a large part of time itself. However, does a human perception make a seed become a sapling, which eventually grows into a 500 foot high tree? Human labels for time, such as an hour and a minute, are perceptions, and we made them up ourself. But everything in this world ages, from humans who have been majorly affected by "human perception" to stars who are billions of light years away from our planet!
Aragorn:
ReplyDeleteTo your first question. I know that it would not be possible to be living inside of a black hole. Note that in my first comment I said "if it was possible to be conscious and functioning in a black hole". Here, I am simply following a hypothetical situation, I know that it is not possible to live inside a black hole, let alone do your homework. To your second I would say, how can you know time is not just a perception. How do you know that tree would not still grow inside a black hole, if it was possible for it to be alive, and that the "time" it takes for the tree to grow is not simply our perception. If something as seemly real as color is only a perception why can't time be one. It, like color, is something perceived by our senses and brains, which can warp what is really there. What I am really saying is, how would a black hole change the perceived amount of "time" it takes us to do things, or for things to happen. Finally the reason it does not say proved is because it is very difficult, if not impossible (as far as I know), to prove something like this, for to do so we would likely have to figure out a way to actually tell what is inside a black hole. This is something we have not figured out how to do. For all we know it IS a big blank room where you could do your homework. Likewise how can we PROOVE that time itself is not a perception, or for that matter, that it is one.
Squabs16:
ReplyDeleteAbout living in a black hole: I recognize that you also see the fact that you cannot live in a black hole, but some others believe that you can actually live in a black hole.
Second of all, and I will say this again, people SAY there is no time in a black hole. Well, I SAY that there is still time in a black hole, and therefore the tree will grow. However, if we were to go into a black hole, we would just lose our perception of time because there is nothing that can show us what time it is. Have you ever read a book or played a game without any timekeeping device nearby? Whenever you are 1. engaged in an activity that takes your mind off of time or 2. you have nothing to do and time just seems to crawl by at an undeterminable rate, you can never really keep track of time until you see the clock afterward and say, "Wow! Time really crawled/flew by!"
About the color: color is not just a perception. Color is made by splitting white light, or the sun's rays, into different pieces. When you split white light, the light will physically change to become different colors. However, you could argue that what we see is completely different from what is actually supposed to be seen, but somewhere between our eyes and our brain, just like our eyes see an upside down image of the world and our brain flips it back over, we somehow change what we see into what we call color.
Finally, nothing can be proved. As Mr. Sewell said before, "for all we know, we could be living in the stomach of some astral goat!". However, we try to come to the most reasonable conclusion possible, and there is almost no chance that the inside of a black hole will be a room where you can do a homework. And so, this is why philosophy is used, to try and debate and settle to a conclusion about what is the most reasonable, even if we cannot prove it.