Is Time Real

Is Time Real

The aspects of time that we can understand are only based on what we can perceive, observe, and calculate. Every day we look at our watches or clocks. We plan our day around different times of the day. Time tells us when to eat, when to sleep, and how long to do things for. Is time real? To answer this question, let me explain what time is first. Time is defined as a measured or measurable period, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions. This broad definition lacks the simple explanation that humans are searching for. There are many scientists, philosophers, and thinkers who have tried to put time into understanding terms. In the following paragraph, I will discuss the meaning of time perceived and theorized by two of the greatest minds of human kind Ð'- Einstein and Kant.

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (study guide, 53) came up with the idea that both space and time were relative to the observer, or the state of motion of the observer (Broadcast). If there are two chairs, and you see someone sitting in one, when you turn away, you can not be sure that he or she is still there. You also can not be sure that they are not in two chairs at the same time, or what point in time they are in them. This all leads up to Einstein's theory that time is relative. What Einstein's theory seemed to tell us was that time is not absolute and universal. It can be changed by motion. Each observer carries around his own personal scale of time and it does not absolutely agree with anybody else's.

However, some philosophers have argued that all time is unreal. Kant, for example, claimed that time both the subjective time we experience as flowing, and objective time as the fixed series of all events Ð'- is a construct of the human mind (Manuel Velasquez, 244). For Kant space and time are not real things, but are modes of experience. Kant's solution was to say that there is something in our