What exactly is 'time' ? please define.

[Ivor Bigun]

Ivor

you are concentrating on the human psychological awareness of time. If you think about time, it passes slowly. A watched pot never boils.

Have you ever gotten into your car for a long journey, then stepped out and thought, 'that went fast'. Other times it can seem like an eternity.

but time passes for cats and dogs. and daffodils.

Indeed EO. However, I would like to postulate that there is no other way of "experiencing" time.

Sure, we can translate what we experience into the absolute world of math, but to prove the math works, we need to observe the outcome.
e.g. time slows down on satelites.

Going off on a tangent for a moment, we also have to accept the premise (law) that "1 + 1 = 2". i.e. we mustn't lose sight (!) that this law is itself based on observations using the senses in a 3d world.
Just because the majority of people here believe in the church of "1+1=2", it doesn't mean it is an absolute truth. I'm sure the dogs and daffodils would agree here - they nothing of this secret abstract world. Why should they? they don't need it.

Also, Time is not constant across the universe - It is progressing differently in different areas of the galaxy right now (fact).

Math also allows for the possibility that time is really going backwards but we perceive it as going forwards.
- Especially on a Monday morning.......

So what exactly is time?
I'm just saying its something that we experience and are able to abstract into the form of math.

IMO, the fact that we observe it, it exists.

[threaded]

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis; Quo modo? fit semper tempore pejor homo.

[OwlHoot]

"Tempus item per se non est, sed rebus ab ipsis
consequitur sensus, transactum quid sit in aevo,
tum quae res instet, quid porro deinde sequatur;
nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendumst
semotum ab rerum motu placidaque quiete."

Lucretius, De rerum natura

(full text here)

"Similarly, time by itself does not exist; but from things themselves there results a sense of what has already occurred, what is now going on, and what is to ensue. It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time itself apart from the movement of things or their restful immobility"

[Doggy Styles]

Time must have always existed, otherwise there would have been nothing for the big bang to start in.

[threaded]

Time must have always existed, otherwise there would have been nothing for the big bang to start in.

[NotAllThere]

Time must have always existed, otherwise there would have been nothing for the big bang to start in.

Fruit flies. Time walks.

[Doggy Styles]

Steady on!

All you guys think you know various answers, but nobody has ever proved what time is.

It's just comparing the longevity between events with longevity between some more events. The rest is just made-up b*ll*cks. Einstein would agree with me.

[Board Game Geek]

I would say that Time is :

The transitive state of any atom in the known universe.

Whilst the imagined concept of time on an individual biological level varies between organisms, at the top level it is the same for all us.

Imagine a man, puppy, a mayfly and an elephant.

Time on the individual biological level affects each of these organisms at different rates.

Now imagine all of these creatures are passengers in the Great Universal Bus.

They, and everything else in the universe, are inside the bus, encapuslated by it, if you like.

Time, at the top level, is the bus, and the motion it makes as it expands through space.

There is nothing "beyond" the bus. The bus is the final arbiter of time.

Therefore, I'd argue that time is the transtive motion of the Universe. Possibly even the existence and being of the Universe, regardless of motion.

[NotAllThere]

The speed of time is well established. 1 second per second.

[Gonzo]

What exactly is 'time' ? please define.

I agree this has become an increasingly complex issue over the past few years.

In the olden days, time was called at 11:00pm sharp (or 10:30pm on a Sunday). It was the same everywhere, and everyone knew where they were.

With the lifting of the restrictions on opening hours you can never be sure exactly when particular licensed premises are going to close so if you're out on a pub-crawl it is a bit of a nightmare towards the end.

I blame the Government.