What is time?

Question

Is time reality or is it illusory in nature?

Your thoughts please?

Answer 1

...a measure of your life in increments...real & illusory...enjoy...

Answer 2

If you ask a physicist you probably get a different answer.  But it is asked in philosophy, so lets philosophize.

Obviously, our reality combines the physical laws to make life possible -- gravity is a key to this in several ways.  It causes the massive black holes that hold our galaxies together, and permits planets, and suns to exist where we benefit from both of these systems.

Time:

To me it has to be at least composed of two or three things.

Each object must have a kind of memory, so that inertia, weight, direction have meaning.  In other words, each object is translated from position one to position two in what perhaps is minimal time for large objects.

This translation must incorporate the qualities of the objects movements, speed, weight, direction.  This translation goes from one to two, and from two to three and once more from 3 to 1.  Just as if you try to move a byte of memory from one to another without destroying the one in the goal.

state a goes to state b, but before that b goes to c, so as to be contained - not lost.

If matter didn't have these qualities inherent in them, the universe couldn't exist in my opinion.  That is what is called now.  The past is simply the extrapolation by intelligent beings of what this memory of movement reveals and is an artifice of intelligence.  It exists in our minds, but no longer in reality.

Thus time is an illusion beyond the simple now and translation of state from micro-moment to micro-moment of this micro-memory; the concept of time itself is an artifact of our minds.

Answer 3

Time is memory.

Answer 4

the concept of time is created by man to explain the moment of now. It is an illusion simply because all defined time has gone or is coming...the past is not here, therefore it is not reality. the future is not here therefore it is not reality...the only reality is now...nope it's gone...okay now...nope that is gone...

Answer 5

Time has no existence.  It is an arbitrary measurement like all other measurements.  Time stands still.  When you look at a chair in the room you see a chair.  When you look at a clock you see the hands moving.  Time does not do or change anything.  Change requires form.

Answer 6

In imaginary self-ignorance(Pramada) we forget what we

really are and imagine some "body" to be ourself, which we

are not.Then consciousness is distorted as object

knowing consciousness with seeming separation of mind

as the subject and all other it knows other than itself as the

object resulting in concept of relativity and time.

Any form of objective knowing is an action or doing

which involves change and change requires some duration

of time.We can experience action or doing only in the flow

of time from past to future.This involves seeming movement

of attention away from ourselves towards the other thing

which involves time.If the consciousness does not move

anywhere but rests only in itself there no time.

So mind and time are concepts created in the imaginary

duality resuling from imaginary self-forgetfulness.

Because they are imaginary their nonexistence is revealed

with the dawn of self-knowledge.

Answer 7

It's a concept describing the movements of the sun and each new day in relation to earth's revolution around the sun.

Answer 8

Time is no illusion although some who have come back from the dead say that time does not exist but events do.

Answer 9

The thing humans use to measure their lives with - from birth to death. Days, months, years...

Remove birth, death and ego-separation and time has no use or meaning.

Answer 10

Consciousness falling on one aspect of itself is what we call "mind". This gives rise to sequential experience, which we call "time".

Answer 11

This is a great inquiry.

I believe that, in Truth, “time” is illusory. It does have its purpose though. All things, even if we believe they are illusory have a purpose – to awaken man.

Time can be helpful for those who still believe in time and for those who see time as an illusion. If one understands what “time” really is, they can work within time to help others who are willing to see what it really is. In my own understanding, time is a creation – Divine Mind, God, whatever you want to call it, creates to create – because it can – and time is one of those creations. Perhaps we could me more aware of how we USE time in our state of awakening that can be more helpful to us.  If we could see all things as just creation, just there, without assigning meaning or judgment, suffering could be eliminated but even “suffering” has its place.

Divine Mind (us) creates in whatever state it is in…awakened or not. It seems what we create in our less-awakened state produces suffering, but creating in a more awakened state produces less suffering until we understand that creation can be used to expand Divine Mind or for lila (play).  We seem to take it all so seriously and that makes for suffering.

Namaste

Answer 12

"Time is a measurement of motion; as such, it is a type of relationship. Time applies only within the universe, when you define a standard—such as the motion of the earth around the sun. If you take that as a unit, you can say: “This person has a certain relationship to that motion; he has existed for three revolutions; he is three years old.” But when you get to the universe as a whole, obviously no standard is applicable. You cannot get outside the universe. The universe is eternal in the literal sense: non-temporal, out of time." -Leonard Peikoff

Answer 13

Time is the sequential classification of movement and change.

Answer 14

Time does not exist.  Time exists in three stages: past, present, and future.  The past has come and gone and is not here, thus it is no longer real.  The future has yet to come and is not here, thus it is not real yet.  The present is all that exists, but before time can even pass it is gone and the future is the present and the present is the past.  Thus the only part of time that is real is the present, but it is now the past as the future becomes the present.

Yeah, I don't think we're suppose to understand.  It's probably better if we continue to live in the illusion that all time is real.  It makes things so much easier.

Answer 15

WE CARRY or look at a watch to measure time

TIME is illusory in nature

God has no cosmic watch, it is maya, VANITY

God is Eternal, no past present and future

Answer 16

I have read that time does not exist.  Masters such as Krishnamurti, Osho, Vimala Thakur and also  Murdo Macdonald Bayne; in Sidhartha I have seen this written about and explained, over and over again, but I find the concept generally quite baffling, because it seems to be talking about something much more than just the passing of the time in which we grow old and die within.

I can understand that the past does not actually exist, it is gone, there is a memory of it and that is all, and I can understand that the future does not exist, there is an idea of it, but it has not yet happened; neither of these have any real substance, or significance, except for the amassing of memories, or the desiring of objects or things.

And I feel through experience and brief glimpses that the present moment IS the only actuality, but still even knowing this is not enough, because the present moment is still wasted in either looking back into the past, or conjecturing into the future.  

For me I spend very little time (pun intended), in the present, because even though I have heard what has been said, something has not sunk in on a deep level and I have no long term conection to this space called the present and because of this I am stuck in what is described as the illusory nature of time.

Linear time is needed for day-to-day living or there would be absolute chaos, no one would remember what time to go to work, or what time to finish work; appointments would be forgotten as would important dates, all of these things take place in linear time.

But only when your personal past and future are dropped completely can your whole being become unified and enter an existence in the present moment.  This is when the illusive quality of time is gone and linear time can be used as the neccessary tool that it is.

Thanks for the question, that was interesting.

Answer 17

A philosophy lecturer at a college open day said to me:

'If you ask both a philosopher and a scientist "'what is time?", the scientist will say 'it is a measurement'  and the philosopher will say 'but what it is measuring?' and the scientist will say "shut up!"'

I guess, empathising with the scientist, time is light travelling.  I don't think the march of time can be denied, because we cannot make it remain in one place if that makes sense - I am sorry to disagree with the earlier answer but if you look at a chair, it may seem to be standing still, totally unaffected by time, but its material will eventually degrade, it will change.  We can't go back in time, so I guess it is the linear (at the moment, anyway) movement of life, marked by light years, minutes, days, years.  We grow old, we change; in periods of grief we might be emotionally stuck in the past but even then we notice our physical environment changing.  I suppose then, that although our minds may not move with time, our bodies seem to be dragged with it, resigned.  Just some thoughts :)

Answer 18

Reality. Time is in essence measured duration. Einstein's general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space.

Answer 19

Time to me is only the measurement of events occurring in the present moment.  It has to be illusory in nature in my opinion because it is relative to my consciousness and my comprehension of the events which it serves to separate.   I believe there is no "past" and no 'future" only an eternal now so then time for me is only a vehicle for enabling the fragmentation of my experience.  thank you, this is as close as I can come within my time-bound perceptions.

Answer 20

We have come to know time and space in our "lesser reality" in the world of duality/polarity where we "de-fine" ourselves as finite beings.  It is the jumping of the ego-centric mind from one "thing" to another that creates the appearance of time, space, separation, etc....the subjectification and objectification of self and other.  When we experience only the Now, we no longer have awareness of differentiation, for we are in the perfect flow of All That Is as it is, unattached to ego's illusions of separateness.  Time (and space or distance) is a construct of the "separation consciousness" of the false ego and its need for "self"-identification.  With the realization of our true nature, unconditioned and unprogrammed, we merge into timelessness (and spacelessness), receiving the perfect, unobstructed flow of life energy as it is...Source in infinite and eternal streaming through us.  We then have become one with the One, awakened from our sleep of separation.

i am Sirius