Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
McGregor, Kadijah
Paper 1: Metaphysics
What is time? Is time travel possible? When nothing is changing does time still exits ? Is that really true? Are you real? Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that is significant to us when questions and other clams bring curiosity about whether things are real or not. Throughout the day we are constantly checking the time, preparing for the upcoming months, and keeping track of the year. Clocks tell us the time we use as a measurement. It’s how we keep track of those important months and events, such as holidays and birthdays. Although there are many investigations and research being done on the nature of time, many unresolved issues remain.
When considering the issue upon the ontological differences
…show more content…
This is inconsistent with the fact that each of those differences reject the statement about time. He admits to this contradiction defending that any attempt to explain why there are difference in time is strictly due to the fact that we need to detail the order in which those events occurred (past, present, or future). The description of the “different times” raises the purpose of the past, present, or future and in turn will lead to a “vicious infinite regress” (Christensen, 1974). The vicious infinite regress is invoked because in order to explain why the alternative appeal to the differences in time, doesn’t go through that effort again, we must first be able to explain why each apply consecutively and then explain why that sequence appeals to the differences in time, which has no end to clarification. In McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence he explains how he no longer goes against the circulatory doubts, which is arguable in itself because he has come begin to treat the differences in tenses as unpretentious and inexpressible concepts, arguing that the tenses don’t need to be explained at all. McTaggart now claims that despite his inability to describe what the time differences mean, we can now apply them without additional scrutiny. This still leads to
John McTaggart in his essay “Time” presents a radical argument that claims time is unreal. While the argument is interesting and has attracted much attention for his arguments, I remain unconvinced of the argument he makes. This paper will lay out McTaggart’s argument that time in unreal, critically analyze why I believe McTaggart’s argument fails and present an alternative idea about time, utilizing aspects of McTaggart’s argument.
One way which we speak, experience and conceive of time is that time is something that flows or passes from the future to the present and from the present to the past. When viewed in this way, events which are present have a special existential status. Whatever may be the case with regard to the reality or unreality of events in the future and the past, events that are in the present exist with a capital 'E'. It can then be postulated that it is the 'present' or 'now' that shifts to even later times. If events in time (or moments of time) are conceived in terms of past, present and future, or by means of the tenses, then they form what McTaggart called the A-series (from which the A-theory of time is derived). This type of change is commonly referred to as 'temporal becoming', and gives rise to well known perplexities concerning both what does the shifting and the type of shift involved, which we will discuss later.
In ancient time people had different ways in telling time such as an hourglass and a water clock. Now a days people have clocks, watches, and an iPhone to help people tell time. Some people can tell time differently, some either use the sky or when they last recently looked at the time. All people use the ability to guess time differently. The brain can help us tell time and what type of day it is. Time was important we can look at the sky, our brain cells can tell time, and how ancient times created the navigation of time.
Since the beginning of time itself, man has been dreaming of time travel. The current model of physics shows no obvious doubts towards the possibility of time travel, which leaves many questions (“Quantum Time Travel”). If the quarrel for time travel holds any truth, how will man manifest the means of going about it? Before the theories set forth by the men and women in the scientific community can be understood, one must have at least a general knowledge of the basics behind quantum mechanics, as well as the estimable; Einstein’s, theory of space-time. Also, in a world where time travel occurs, there is the possibility of a paradox, or impossible situation caused by the travelers’ actions. Many answers to the paradoxes have been set forth by notable people. Possibly the most widely accepted theory of time travel, Einstein’s black hole theory, still holds prevalence to this day. Some other theories have come to light recently, and most are yet to be disproved.
What is time? We may be tempted to assume everyone has a notion of time that is the consistent with one another. A part of that “intuitive” notion of time contains the absoluteness of time – that time ticks at the same rate no matter what and it is independent. Even if an apocalypse were to happen to Earth, time will still flow nonchalantly. Yet, in the early 19th Century, Albert Einstein’s “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” or more affectionately known as the Special Relativity paper, confounded our common notions of time, as well as space. The theory could explain many weird phenomena like Stella Abberation , Fizeau’s experiment , Michelson-Morley’s Experiments . It also hypothesized mass-energy (which led to nuclear power plants) and predicted relativity of simultaneity , both of which has been proven at a later time. It has survived the requirements of the scientific method and was on the way to become one of the most famous scientific paper.
I wanted to understand so I went to the dictionary and found that Webster?s had no less than 29 definitions for this tiny word, time. I looked on-line and found self help books that said I could manage it better and scientists who posted things regardi...
An essential requirement for the possibility of time travel is the presumption that future and past were somehow real. But according to one popular view only the present is real, and to suppose that the past or future are also real is to suppose that the past and the future are also present -- a contradiction. According to this sort of Heraclitean metaphysical conception, the future is genuinely open: there is no realm of determinate future fact, no denizens of the future to identify or talk about, though of course -- in the fullness of time -- there will be. Travel to the future on this view would be ruled out because there is simply nowhere to go.
It rushes by before you notice; it sneaks up behind you without uttering a word. Past, present, future. Rahel once believed that whatever number she wrote on her toy watch would be true; “Rahel’s toy wristwatch had the time painted on it. Ten to two. One of her ambitions was to own a watch on which she could change the time whenever she wanted to (which according to her was what Time was meant for in the first place)” (37). Roy wrote The God of Small Things in a nonlinear fashion; time jumps around and goes from the perspective of Rahel as a 7-year-old to 20 years later in a matter of a sentence. Likewise, time changes form, there isn’t really a past, present, and future, it’s all within the life of the twins, it flows together as waves, as ripples, the same concept just in different appearances.
In the western society, our linear time structure has caused us to habitually separate time into intervals that consistently continue. The pressure these milestones place on people is enormous -- we are demanded to live life a certain way as there is always a time limit, even on the length of time we have in this world. Although these constraints tend to create the worry that life may not have meaning and bring with them the mystery of death, one must learn to emotionally separate oneself from this structure. Time as we have defined it is merely a human invention; aging and curiousness about the future are natural human instincts but when a man-made structure begins to cast a shadow of doubt on life’s meaning one must take a step back a realize that there is more to life than the ticking of a clock.
Modern, western man, however, lives in a world that runs according to the mechanical and mathematical symbols of clock time. The clock dictates his movements and inhibits his actions. The clock turns time from a process of nature into a commodity that can be measured and bought and sold like soap or sultanas. And because, without some means of exact time keeping, industrial capitalism could never have developed and could not continue to exploit the workers, the clock represents an element of mechanical tyranny in the lives of modern men more potent than any individual exploiter or than any other machine. It is therefore valuable to trace the historical process by which the clock influenced the social development of modern European civilization.
The scientific definition of time is a measurement of progress that is relative to an individual’s perception of events (HowStuffWorks.com, 2010). A psychological study proves that these viewpoints are
What is meant by Metaphysics? Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
Many people, including scholars, have different speculations of when “time” actually began. To understand the nature of time machines, it is important to understand the nature of time. The PowerPoint presentation about Time and Time Machines provides more than enough information on the concept of time. One piece of information I found within the PowerPoint was on the third slide. The slide discusses the three forms of time: the past, present and future. I think this is important in explaining the concept of time because it gives the reader the three basic states of time and that the present is always going to be what is occurring now. This is an interesting concept to me because time could be a matter of subjectivity. What I mean is that the present moment was just in the future and it will be in the past soon enough: the present could be the future and the past at the same
Since the days of Newton, the ideas of classical mechanics prevailed in the scientific community. The ideas of absolute velocity and absolute time were accepted phenomenon and were not at all challenged. However, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, new observations were being made, observations which contradicted the current theory of the time.
First of all, to give you a better concept of time I will use a personal theory of mine. When you look up at the sky at night, at the stars, what are you seeing? Do you think that collage of stars actually exists? Most of them do not. When you look at the sky at night you are seeing the past because it takes an obscene amount of time for the light from those stars to reach earth, and in that time those stars may have disappeared.