How can time singular be systems plural? — tim wood
Time: systems primarily sculpted towards the role of coordinating systems that are divergent enough to be deficient in self-coordination. — Enrique
that isn't a definition of time.
Time consists of the properties of pastness, presentness and futurity. Some would add that it must also include the relations of 'earlier than' 'later than' and 'simultaneous with'. Indeed, some would say that those relations are the more fundamental, with others saying the reverse. — Bartricks
The frequency of electromagnetic emission from an excited electron that recedes from a higher to a lower energy level is the same for those energy levels, independent of the location in which this occurs. Meaning, that the clocks in nature are tied to fundamental rhythmic qualities that define temporal distance, even if various forms of synchronization to other events are not obviously related (daylight, a traffic conductor signal). I am not sure if I am picking up the scope and intent of the definition. It appears to be divorced from the physical origin of the concept of time. You want to maximally abstract, but it seems to me that you are defining coordination, not temporal synchronization. — simeonz
Time has asymmetries, particularly in connection to the thermodynamic, weak force, and spatial indeterminacy qualities of matter, which have no equivalent for space. Thus, for example, we are making choices for the future based on past experience, and not choices for the past, based on future experience. We have no preferred orientation in space. Another distinction between time and space is that, spatially, the "wave packets" of particles are identical for each type of particle with the same momentum in a given reference frame, yet, the temporal form of any particle is unrestricted and potentially indefinite. — simeonz
Given your subsequent elaboration, I guess what this horrible mess is trying to get at is a notion of a clock, in its most general sense. In other words, time is what clocks measure. This isn't wrong, but like all other attempts at bootstrapping the notion of time, it does not escape circularity. — SophistiCat
I think investigation of entanglement and quantum coherence will fundamentally change our image of what subatomic particles do within atoms and elsewhere. Modeling quantum mechanisms may make our assumptions about electron orbitals obsolete and completely revise comprehension of their temporal properties. Maybe absolute parameters of temporality exist, but I'm not aware that we've even come close to reaching them yet. — Enrique
All definitions are tautologously circular, — Enrique
ridiculous things about time being relative — Bartricks
this seems to me like a comprehensive definition of time — Enrique
All definitions are tautologously circular — Enrique
my definition's strong point is that it is maximally generalized — Enrique
The problem with defining time (real, physical time, not a mathematical abstraction) is that any other concepts to which you attempt to reduce it already depend on time for their understanding. — SophistiCat
My assumption is that temporality "is" something, that it exists as somehow instantiated in substance, not an empty, null set concept, and hence not any more "circular" than matter. — Enrique
It seems that all such concepts through which we try to define or explicate time are already entangled with temporality in our understanding: clock, process, change, rate, periodicity, simultaneity, synchronization (obviously), coordination. — SophistiCat
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