[neilep (OP)]

Time , its great innit ? its my favourite way to measure intervals and stuff.

As a Sheepy I of course know everything there is to know about time, but one thing does baffle me in a somewhat baffling way.

Did Time have to exist first for the Universe to expand into ?

Its said that " Time began at the big bang"  but surely time had to come first and then once 'time' was happily minding its own business, the universe expanded into it !!

whajafink ?


hugs and shmishes

mwah mwah mwah !!

Sheepy
xxxx

[Bill S]

whajafink ?

I "fink" this question goes round in circles and probably leads to the "conclusion" that time was not created, it is simply our means of measuring change.  Change then becomes something we perceive, in order to make sense of our "perceived" Universe. 

It's all an illusory "shadow" of an underlying reality.

Come back David Bohm, all is forgiven. 

[jeffreyH]

If nothing is changing then there is nothing to measure. Also if there is a barrier that precludes measurement then apparently there is nothing to measure. The event horizon of a black hole is just such a barrier. So we have no idea if time is meaningful within this region. Inside the black hole, or any dense, enclosed region, there will still be some change occurring. So that any fluctuations of the vacuum can be said to be time dependent. It all depends upon point of view.

[Bill S]

[quote = Jeffrey] It all depends upon point of view. [/quote]

Precisely!  and our point of view is, strictly, the point of view of out 3+1D, linear Universe.  This is the "explicate order". 

What we cannot see, directly, is the "implicate order"; but should that stop us from, at east, trying to apply reason and logic to our consideration of it?