Bear with me. I was thinking of how to represent the empty space between particles in a dimensional sense. Empty space has no point of reference so it can not be represented 3D. But apply time to it and you can kind of time empty space because it only remains empty for certain amounts of times. So is our perception of time merely particles occupying nothing for a set amount of time therefore making empty space time physically represented? Best way to visualize is to think of empty space as a liquid and particles displacing that liquid.
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If time is nothing, or is space, we have a hard time with entropy. Entropy does not naturally increase across space, and the effects of entropy do not appear to be 'nothing' because we have memory. I think the closest you can get to time being nothing is that it simply *is* entropy, as described here http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/38871/9166 – Nov 07 '16 at 06:03
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[Literally](http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary_literally_now_also_means_figuratively_newscred/) as in "metaphorically" and "figuratively" or [literally](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=literally) as in "actually"? ;) ...Consider [spacetime](http://archive.org/stream/monistquart28hegeuoft#page/288/mode/2up) (pace [Minkowski](http://www.minkowskiinstitute.org/mip/MinkowskiFreemiumMIP2012.pdf)) – MmmHmm Nov 07 '16 at 06:11
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*can time literally be nothing?*. Of course not, since by the word "time" we designate *something* and, in particular, not *nothing*. – M. le Fou Nov 07 '16 at 07:12
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@M.leFou Can unicorns literally be nothing? Well, I think they can. If they were something we would not be able to say all unicorns are white and all unicorns are black are equally true. Vocabulary has uses, not implications. – Nov 07 '16 at 14:41
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My goal with this question was for people to stop using assumptions to stabilize a false sense of existence. Maybe I am in the wrong place. – Nate Nov 07 '16 at 19:34
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If your goal with a question is to change other people's minds, it is not a question. This is not a site for *doing* philosophy, it is a site for spreading philosophical thought that already exists, and maybe helping people combine it in useful ways. To that end, there are rules. If you never intended to follow them, why are you here? – Nov 07 '16 at 19:49
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"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." -Augustine. Start by reading the Confessions. – Nov 07 '16 at 21:01
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@Nate: this is the web. there is always a signal/noise ratio, and it varies. just hang out a bit to get a feel for it and ignore the bs. you can get some good answers, even if it takes a few tries. – Nov 07 '16 at 21:11
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and fwiw the ontological status of time is indeed problematic even for physicists. – Nov 07 '16 at 21:13
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@jobermark An easy 'sanity test' for such a proposition: google *unicorn*. You might find some article or other beginning "A unicorn is a...". In fact you will find several (thousand) of these. Then you could tell all of the authors that they are wrong and in fact, a unicorn is nothing! – M. le Fou Nov 08 '16 at 09:46
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@M.leFou So if time is a delusion, that is not nothing. This aspect of nominalism is an old saw, not worth using. If everything referred to is something, 'Nothing' is referred to, so nothing must be something, and a la Aristotelian 'horror vaccui', there is no nothing... Time cannot be nothing, but neither can your error in saying so. You error in saying unicorns exist is something... This is not philosophy, this is a collection of Raymond Smullian jokes. – Nov 08 '16 at 13:52
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@jobermark If that wasn't a simple name-drop with your reference to Aristotle then you've made a mistake based on two different meanings of the word *nothing*. You also incorrectly state that I made the claim "unicorns exist". Apart from a mention of the term nominalism, I can't glean anything else meaningful from that comment. – M. le Fou Nov 09 '16 at 09:15
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@M.leFou I didn't say you said unicorns exist. I said your error in saying unicorns exist is something. It was referenced, after all. If you are going to play fussy games like this, you need to get fussier. I am saying it is correct to say fictions are nothing. You seem to contend otherwise. This is Meinongian nominalism, as far as I can tell, which is nonsense, because, as made obvious by your misinterpretation of what I said, which would be a valid meaning only on *my* terms and not on the ones you propose, makes negations in language basically impossible to follow. – Nov 09 '16 at 14:30
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@M.leFou You can invent distinctions as you wish, but they still don't exist. There is only one meaning of 'nothing', although it may appear at different levels of 'quoting'. And I also did not say this was an application of Aristotle's notion, but I do believe it has the same flaws. – Nov 09 '16 at 14:37
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There seem to be a series of very serious non-sequiturs here.
First of all, we easily represent empty space in three dimensions. Despite the lack of contents, or points of reference, we can visualize it easily, and we understand its geometry implicitly.
To the extent that we can imagine anything timelessly, we can imagine empty space timelessly more easily than we can imagine actual matter or energy, which is made up of 'waving' entities, timelessly. We have no idea what light or particles would actually look like if they were stopped. But we know we could never see it -- light travel is not instantaneous. So it may be that empty space is the only thing we can imagine properly without time involved.
Even if it any of that were ironed out, I am not sure how that leads to the conclusion. One of our basic intuitions of time may very well be best captured in the impossible image of seeing particles suspended in something (like a very thick fluid) and not moving. Since this is, in fact, an illusion of the impossible, it may itself be nothing.
But your path to there does not fit with common intuitions of space or time. And our pure intuitions of space have their own drawbacks, too, and we adapt them rather than discarding them.
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Are you basing this on anything? Kant, for example, said, "...it is impossible ever to draw from experience a proof of the existence of empty space or of empty time. For in the first place, an entire absence of reality in a sensuous intuition cannot of course be an object of perception;" If empty space cannot be an object of perception, it's doubtful that it could be an object of imagination. – Nov 07 '16 at 09:51
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@PédeLeão I said represent, as did the OP, not prove the existence of. We do geometry. Please criticise me on the basis of what I actually say. – Nov 07 '16 at 14:37
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@PédeLeão Unicorns are an object of imagination that cannot be an object of perception. To a large degree so is the whole of mathematics. We can perceive approximations to things like unicorns and straight lines and make up imagination out of them. But it helps if there is an underlying predeliction to converge on a common image, which I (and Kant with the notion of the synthetic a priori-ness of math) think is the case in the notions of straight lines, and empty space. – Nov 07 '16 at 14:52
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Live in a world where you have the ability to accept what isn't but consequently no longer accept what is to be a whole truth it becomes difficult to articulate obscure topics. You can make reality and perception what ever you want through the use of interpretation. – Nate Nov 07 '16 at 15:49
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@Nate OK, that then becomes the only possible answer. Sure, you can interpret time as nothing. If no logic needs to support it, then you didn't really ask a question. You made a statement, and we should close your 'question'. – Nov 07 '16 at 17:46
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haha you misunderstand me. I merely live under the assumption that human perception is inaccurate to the point i can access our current assumed objective facts to have a high likely hood of potential falsity and thus we must propose questions that live outside that likely hood. – Nate Nov 07 '16 at 19:23
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@jobermark. Are you basing this on anything? Do you have any references or is it just speculation? – Nov 07 '16 at 20:22
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@PédeLeão I am basing paragraph 2 on the existence of geometry, paragraph 3 on basic physics, paragraph 4 on basic logic and there is no real content in paragraphs 1 and 5, they are just introduction and summary. No, no references are required. If you feel there is a need for references, flag it, and we can see if a moderator agrees with your opinion that this is not obvious. – Nov 07 '16 at 20:34
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@PédeLeão Some perspectives come from so broad a base of sources that it is impossible to attribute them to any individual or work. – Nov 07 '16 at 20:47
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@jobermark. I never said references were required. I only asked. Moderators used to try to maintain the quality of answers better than they do now, so now it's up to you to try to maintain that quality. But if you don't care about quality, then it is what it is. However, in my opinion, your answer looks dubious and could benefit from a citation from a recognized philosopher. It's not as impossible as you claim. – Nov 07 '16 at 21:30