Time ??

[Lark]

How long does 'new' stay New ????

[Dave]

How long does 'new' stay New ????

568 years (so far) if it is the New Inn in Gloucester.

Also a frame of reference is needed - I am still finding ancient Greek (etc) knowledge that is new to me!

Got an example, Lark? How long has "New Wave" been going now, since the 70s?

[Dragonia]

One month.

[Dave]

One day for bread?

[xSilverPhinx]

As long as it takes for the brain to process what is 'new' and for what is 'new' to become familiar.

I don't know exactly how long that is, though...the time it takes to consolidate information into a memory depends on several factors.

[No one]

Everything old is new again.

[Dragonia]

Dude, this question should be in the philosophy section...

[xSilverPhinx]

Dude, this question should be in the philosophy section...

I agree.

[xSilverPhinx]

I was watching an interview yesterday in which this very question came up and one of the commentators drew a distinction between velho (which means 'old') and antigo (also meaning old, though something more along the lines of 'antique' or 'ancient'). He mentioned that things that are 'antigo' may be old but are still relevant, such as the wheel.

So, could what's new also still be relevant?   It doesn't make much sense, though...taking the example of the wheel, it's probably one of the oldest inventions of the modern world, yet still one of the most important today.   

[Dave]

I was watching an interview yesterday in which this very question came up and one of the commentators drew a distinction between velho (which means 'old') and antigo (also meaning old, though something more along the lines of 'antique' or 'ancient'). He mentioned that things that are 'antigo' may be old but are still relevant, such as the wheel.

So, could what's new also still be relevant?   It doesn't make much sense, though...taking the example of the wheel, it's probably one of the oldest inventions of the modern world, yet still one of the most important today.

Er, when did "the modern world" start, Silver? 6000 years ago (possibly)?

The important thing is not age, it's relevance, the wheel is just as relevant now as it wss in ancient Mesopotamia. Grannie's recipé for melon and ginger jam (jello) is as relevant now as when she perfected it.

Some things, like car brakes, improve over time - others, like Microsoft products, get worse!

Anyway, it is still my contention that the wheel was never "invented".

[xSilverPhinx]

I was watching an interview yesterday in which this very question came up and one of the commentators drew a distinction between velho (which means 'old') and antigo (also meaning old, though something more along the lines of 'antique' or 'ancient'). He mentioned that things that are 'antigo' may be old but are still relevant, such as the wheel.

So, could what's new also still be relevant?   It doesn't make much sense, though...taking the example of the wheel, it's probably one of the oldest inventions of the modern world, yet still one of the most important today.

Er, when did "the modern world" start, Silver? 6000 years ago (possibly)?

The important thing is not age, it's relevance, the wheel is just as relevant now as it wss in ancient Mesopotamia. Grannie's recipé for melon and ginger jam (jello) is as relevant now as when she perfected it.

Some things, like car brakes, improve over time - others, like Microsoft products, get worse!

Anyway, it is still my contention that the wheel was never "invented".

Whoops, yeah, I didn't mean 'modern age', that started around the Renaissance, I think. I was thinking further back. 

[Bad Penny II]

Do it.
No, they'll throw something at me.
But you're hours ahead so they're unlikely to hit you.
That's easy for you to say, it's hard to hit a figment, so I've found.
Go on, do it.
OK, time is relative.
And not just in the way Einstein meant.
Ye

[Recusant]

Took a while to find a thread that might accommodate this article. What are old threads for if not to be rumbled into?

The author of this piece says that events don't exist in the way that stars and planets exist. Rather it is more accurate to say that events happen. From this he further says that spacetime doesn't exist. The Universe exists, and we use spacetime as a framework for understanding it. The article does a fair job of laying out the ideas, and in the comments the author defends his position, which is interesting as well.

"Space-time doesn't exist — but it's a useful framework for understanding our reality" | The Conversation

Whether space-time exists should neither be controversial nor even conceptually challenging, given the definitions of "space-time," "events" and "instants." The idea that space-time exists is no more viable than the outdated belief that the celestial sphere exists: both are observer-centred models that are powerful and convenient for describing the world, but neither represents reality itself.

Yet from the standpoints of modern physics, philosophy, popular science communication and familiar themes in science fiction, stating that space-time does not exist is contentious.

But what would it mean for a world where everything that has ever happened or will happen somehow "exists" now as part of an interwoven fabric?


Events are not locations

It's easy to imagine past events — like losing a tooth or receiving good news — as existing somewhere. Fictional representations of time travel underscore this: time travellers alter events and disrupt the timeline, as if past and future events were locations one could visit with the right technology.

Philosophers often talk this way too. Eternalism says all events across all time exist. The growing block view suggests the past and present exist while the future will come to be. Presentism says only the present exists, while the past used to exist and the future will when it happens. And general relativity presents a four-dimensional continuum that bends and curves — we tend to imagine that continuum of the events as really existing.

The confusion emerges out of the definition of the word "exist." With space-time, it's applied uncritically to a mathematical description of happenings — turning a model into an ontological theory on the nature of being.

[. . .]

Space-time is the map of where and when events happen. A worldline is the record of every event that occurs throughout one's life. The key question is whether the map — or all the events it draws together at once — should be said to exist in the same way that cars, people and the places they go exist.

[Continues . . .]