[Arthur McGowan]

Time is caused by the fact that things don't all happen at once. Space is caused by the fact that some things are over here, and other things are over there. These scientists who insist on making things complicated just kill me.

[Hank Kerchief]

Time is caused by the fact that things don't all happen at once. Space is caused by the fact that some things are over here, and other things are over there. These scientists who insist on making things complicated just kill me.

That's right. And the relativity of time works like this: the rate of time is in inverse proportion (slower) to how much you hate what you are doing (sitting in the doctor's office waiting room) and in direct proportion (faster) to how much you love what you are doing (snuggling with your honey).

Now that we have space and time worked out, solving the problems of politics and economics should be a snap.

Hank

[plusone]

I love that logic!!!

[EternalVigilance]

Time is caused by the fact that things don't all happen at once. Space is caused by the fact that some things are over here, and other things are over there. These scientists who insist on making things complicated just kill me.

You have probably made more sense than anyone else on this thread. ;-)

[boris]

"Time is caused by the fact that things don't all happen at once."

Things not happening all at once are caused by time.

Barbour thinks space time is an 'arena' in which events are embedded. "Things happening' are events. In Barbour's view--as far as I (mis)understand it, all possible configurations of events in what we call 'space time' are already present in the 'arena'.

Part of my difficulty with Barbour is that his argument seems somewhat circular--it seems to imply an 'instruction pointer' or 'moving finger' that selects events in some sequence. But a sequence presupposes time--or so I suppose.

Slippery as Mach's Principle.

--Boris

[GregoryFul]

Actually, the temporal order of events is subject to the observer's position in space. Er, well, one could adjust for distance and assume that A occured before B -- but then, a real event does not happen without an observer -- so... I'm so confused!