Does Time Exist?

Says a reader:

I tell people that it is a mistake to believe that time began in the Big Bang, and that duration and time are not one and the same like many people believe, so I of course "have to put up or shut up" and then explain when time did actually begin.

I personally believe that time began back in prehistoric times with the first generation of prehistoric man. I also believe that timekeeping was very near the beginning of man's knowledge and he learned and developed many other things from this(Logic, fractions, geometry, math, etc.)

My response:

I think you are confusing two very different questions. You answer your question by saying in effect that time began when humans recognized duration as evidenced by the path of the sun or the changing seasons. But this doesn't address the underlying question as to what time is or even if it exists in any real sense. I think you can convice me in the existence of three dimensions. But how do we know for sure that there is a fourth dimension of time-- that there is "something" other than the now and that "something" causally relates to the "now"?

You apparently consider that there is such a thing as an absolute factor as 'time' outside of human belief systems. My rationalization is that nothing exists for us humans, including the notion of 'reality' (you mentioned 'real time') unless it exists in our minds first. We are addressing the question of "When did time begin?"So 'time' began with a notion of our ancestors, and probably long before the construction of the stone edifices.

I think Einstein put to rest the notion that time is an absolute factor. But is it merely an artifact of human consciousness? Much of the natural world is influenced by time, such as circadian rhythms. It doesn't seem to make sense that humans "invented" time. The Humean skeptic would say that only "now" manifestly exists, not yesterday or tomorrow. Thus, David Hume would insist, we cannot make any claim whatever that the sun will rise tomorrow or the pencil that drops from my hand at this instant will drop from my hand at this next instant. I have trouble understanding your claim that "nothing exists for us humans unless it exists in our mind first." Humean skepticism may defy common sense, but that flavor of solipsism also defies common sense. Thus, it would seem, the music I hear and the colors I see is my (possibly delusional) consciousness, not objectively real air vibrations or light waves. But the question I would ask is: if time is more than a mere comprehensive human apprehension, what exactly is it then? Perhaps the answer is the same answer I would give to the question: when did energy exist? It always was, it always is, and it will always be. Time, like energy, never began. They simply are.

While I agree that humans did not "invent" time (when time is understood to be what others on here have called "duration") I disagree with your reasons for supporting this claim. Einstein put to rest the notion that time is an absolute factor in a particular sense. But what Einstein did not do was to make it something subjective. What Einstein did was to show that time is different when observed from different inertial reference frames in the same way that my pen looks different when viewed from different angles. There is a measure which can be defined on spacetime which is invariant under Lorentz transformations (i.e. transformations from one reference frame to another.) These are called space-time intervals. Understood from this perspective, transformations from one reference frame to another can be understood as rotations in spacetime which turn spatial dimensions (x, y, z, or mixtures thereof) into time or vice versa. So while the absoluteness of time was put to rest by Einstein, he discovered for us a deeper absolute quantity (spacetime intervals).