Question I have a series of questions about Time, motion, and space. Or maybe they are the same question expressed different ways in an attempt at clarity. Is the concept of "Time" possible apart from the concept of "Change"? In what ways are the two concepts different? Is it possible for "Time" to exist apart from "Change"? Can anything truthful be said about "Time" that does not also apply in an identical way to "Change"? Is "Change" possible without "Motion" of some kind? If even at an atomic level? Could time exist if nothing moved? How is the concept of time possible without the concept of motion? How is it in anyway different? How can space be conceived apart from the relation we refer to as 'distance' between two or more objects? If there was only one object in the universe how would space be conceived or possible? The same question applies to motion, how is it conceivable unless there is movement in relation to some other body? I am not a philosopher. I'm a high school drop out and construction worker. However, I can't stop thinking about these questions and I cannot not think of any way that time, space, and motion are in any way different concepts. I FEEL that they are different, but when I try to THINK about them, I can't think of them in any way except as identical concepts with different names. It is like trying to think about the concept of 'elevation' as something distinct from "UP" or "Down". In fact it's like trying to conceive of "UP" without conceiving of "Down". It is like Space, Time and Motion are part of a relation whose relating parts are inconceivable except in the terms of the relation itself. I feel I clearly understand the reality in my own mind, but I am confused because everyone else talks about these things as if they are distinct parts of reality.

Accepted:
June 3, 2010

Comments

You may be a high school drop out, but you have a genius for asking great questions! Let me try to break up the questions a bit. There is a difference between motion and change insofar as motion appears to involve physical objects and events. If there is motion, there is change, but some philosophers have either denied the existence of physical objects or events (some idealists) or they are theists who believe that there was a time when God (an immaterial / non-physical reality) existed and there were no physical objects. These philosphers would allow that change could exist, but without motion. In any case, once you have change, you have time, for change presumably involves there being one time when X occurs and then another time when X is not in the same state. If motion ceased, would time cease? Not necessarily, if there could be a nonphysical reality (God or souls or...) that change. But what if all change ceased? Would time then cease? Well, if by 'all change' we include 'temporal change' then I suppose the answer would have to be 'yes', but let's refine the question. Imagine all physical and non-physical (if there are any) realities ceased to involve or undergo any changing states; imagine everthing (as it were) freezes and there is no change in thinking, feeling, breathing etc. Can we imagine this happening for, say, 10 minutes and then everything starting back up again? Well, no one would know there had been a 10 gap, and indeed the very idea of there being a gap of 10 minutes as opposed to 9 suggests we can make sense of clock time when there are no changes among any clocks anywhere. Even so, I think the thought experiment makes some sense, and insofar as it does, then there is some reason to think that time is more basic than non-temporal changes.

An analogy with space may be useful. One reason for thinking that space is more than the spatial objects that make up the spatial world is as follows: Can you imagine everything spatial doubling in size in an instant? I think one can, though this would be utterly undetected in our experience. People would still be the same heighth, the moon would still be the same distance from earth according to all our systems of measurement. Nonetheless, there could be a fact of the matter that every spatial thing doubled.

Space and time, I suggest may be more fundamental than motion or change. You may need space and time for there to be motion, as well as change.