Kindest
Gavin
Alexei Sharov wrote:
> Comments to the message of Gavin Ritz:
>
> It seems that you want to understand the essence of time, but
> there is no such essence. Why should we care about what time
> REALLY IS? It is sufficient to use various MODELS of time. For
> many purposes, it is sufficient to use the Newtonean time; but
> for other purposes it does not work and we can create other
> models that suit us.
>
> Apparently, most organisms have a model of time. But in simple
> organisms, models of time are very simple (e.g., a sequence of
> stages in a life-cycle). Humans are most advanced among animals
> and have most sophisticated models of time, some of which are
> formalized (e.g., in physics) and many of them are not
> formalized. I agree that we need more formal models of
> time. But first we need to understand what would be the purpose
> of these models. Models are tools; and time and space are tools
> too. There is no reason to develop useless tools. Can you
> formulate your problems that you are going to solve using
> non-standard models of time?
>
> -Alexei
> -------------------------------------------------
> Alexei Sharov Research Scientist
> Dept. of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
> Tel. (540) 231-7316; FAX (540) 231-9131; e-mail sharov@vt.edu
> Home page: http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/alexei.html