As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…
This week’s post is a short rhetorical question, and I’m piggy-backing off of last week’s connection between time and sound.
I wish I could remember where, but I once read that there is no experiment science can conduct that would prove/disprove the existence of time. Let’s presume for the moment that this is correct…
If we cannot prove the existence of time, and we need time to perceive sound, then how can we prove the existence of sound?
Perhaps time is hard to prove/measure because it’s a dimension without physical properties? Sound very much has physical properties and as such has measurable effects we can record, at least within the dimensions we consciously inhabit. So my thinking is that yes, we can prove sound exists within that context at least, but it’s a fun question to be sure.
Of course! It’s part of the effect a physical event has on its surroundings. But our perception of it is so integrated with the passage of time. I wonder how we would perceive it if time was eliminated from the equation, and whether or not we would even consider it “sound” in that scenario.
Right, well now your talking because really, ‘sound’ only exists through perception. It’s just movement which our brain infers information from which we ‘hear’ because that’s how our brain interprets that information. There are creatures which perceive sound in a similar way to sight, and then you have echo location with bats and dolphins. Is it all one and the same, is it all sound? Or is it all just in our heads? If a tree falls in the forest and…. Argh, my head hurts!
that depends on if you interpret the elimination of time to equal time freezing.
If you do, then freezing time would in effect stop all physical effects in all manners, not just sound, but also light and heat, etc.
If you do not, then you haven’t really changed anything because time does not affect whether the air continues to move or not. The air will move regardless of if we measure or record it.
Purely philosophicaly, time is relative, and I strongly believe it is fluid/metamorphic.
Our perception of it is linear(preconception), but it can be accelerated or deccelerated by our brain(sensation), so it makes sense that any physical phenomenon that is based on a “mathematical” concept (hereby time) will reflect a linear behavior. (IE observing the moon cycle to build a calendar, using sun dials… These are outer earth phenomenon that creates something here, in which we base our physics)
Now, where it gets interesting, by being conceptualized into a mathematical form, any other phenomenon that is based on time will be linear. For example, gravity is an acceleration of speed, not time. But when moving extremely fast, don’t we feel like time is altered?
So, thinking of it, Time does exist as a dimension, but its speed and phenomenons are only based on human-earth perception..
Once again, we can’t know for sure!