Could we live without time?

I know we can live without it, as it was/is done, but what I'm aiming at is: would it be a good experience? Would we feel something very important was missing?

I, for once, feel quite confused when for seconds I forget what week day it is.

What about you? Do you also feel the "compulsive" need to keep up with time or you just don't care, as long as everything's good?

Interesting concept, there was a study done into the natural cycle of the human body clock, and quite interesting when Michel Siffre lived in a cave for 2 months in 1962 and later for 6 months in 1972, he made sure that he had no way of being able to tell the time of day. His body clock ran in a 25 hour cycle.
Just thought that might be of interest

Yeah, if I were to go without knowing the time for any sort of time, I'd go nuts. I'm kinda paranoid about time.

Can we live without time? I don't know exactly what you mean by that. Do you want to remove all clocks from this world or something similar? I only know when you do something like that,. it would be damn hard to make appointments with other people.

More like, imagine you didn't have access to daylight nor any device able to tell time - still, you would have a "regular" life - working, dating, etc. How do you think you'd feel about that?

You mean like a world where the sun would never set nor rise? And how I would feel about that?


Let me think about that for a bit...

I think Arkanay means living without ever knowing what the time is. For example, living in a cave with artificial light only. Where you can't tell the time from anything, not even the sun rising.

I can't stand not having a clock in a room since I like to know the time very frequently. The thing that annoys me most is classrooms at school that have no clock on the wall. I've even ended up doing one of the junior maths challenges in school, with no clock to look at. Naturally, I messed up all of my timings and didn't do as well as I should've. (nobody cares about the maths challenge though, so it's all right )

If only I could be like my grandad, who doesn't use a watch and never has, he can tell you the time to about 10 minutes accuracy just off the top of his head.

If I had no way to tell what the time was, I'd go nuts. I frequently look at the time and feel lost and uncertain when I can't.

When I was younger, I was like that, Damnagoras. I couldn't leave the house without wearing a watch (back then we had no cell phones...) and I would always double check with another clock in public places.

Nowadays, I feel we are so invested in doing so many things by a tight schedule that we have forgotten to really take the time to execute them. I have friends and family who never have the time for anything because they aways have to be in two places at the same time. I have long given up on filling up my schedule. I don't want to rush through life and relish in my activities.

Of course, we do need some sort of reminder what time it is, especially with a civilization that is supposed to run like clockwork. Imagine everyone went as they "felt time" we would all be dead in no time.

Since man has had the ability to understand the movement of time, we've always tried to have some way of making it quantifiable. Now I think the ability to tell time is just too ingrained into everyday life to live completely without.

Sure I don't look at a clock ever 5 minutes and I don't obsess over time, but if I need to do something its good to know when I should roughly get a move on. University would be a nightmare as everything is so regulated by time. Imagine doing chemical experiments without ways of telling time. Many explosions would occur me thinks.

Working, dating and anything currently requires knowledge of time would be difficult and disordered. While you may wake up in a fair regular cycle, you would find it hard to go off how long you've been awake to when you need to do things. You can easily lose track of time when no ways of telling time are around.


If I didn't have a clock, I'd most likely devise a system of coconuts being aligned with the path of the sun and putting a giant box with a pin hole at the top and a viewing window on the side.

I'd just look in and see where the beam of light was hitting which coconut and use that as my way of telling time.

E.g "Hey Frank, I'll met you at 3 and a half coconuts".

I think it would work

LordRemington wrote:E.g "Hey Frank, I'll met you at 3 and a half coconuts".

I think it would work

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"It's a quarter to get out!"

Andeavor wrote:Nowadays, I feel we are so invested in doing so many things by a tight schedule that we have forgotten to really take the time to execute them. I have friends and family who never have the time for anything because they aways have to be in two places at the same time.

That be my life. I don't resent it much, though; it's always been a natural part of life. Time isn't worth much for philosophizing or thinking about, it's just a natural element of human life. I'd find it difficult to believe that we could live without time. It'd be impossible unless you destroyed all of mathematics and science as well, since we categorize time by observing repeating sequences and measuring them (i.e. day/night cycle, birth to death-sequence). No time to think about it, anyway, since in the end, time is always running out. Gotta run

There's a couple of studies that have been done to look into how 'time' or awareness of it effects us. One was where they put people in a room and switched the lights off/on at different times, so the people only had that to go by and another where they looked at one guy who lived in a cave without light for a week or so. It messed both of groups/indididuals up significantly. If I can find links to them I'll post, it's quite interesting.

As for living without time... I'd be quite happy to get up with the dawn and sleep when it got dark. I could care less about labelling the time. The only reason I keep track of it is because of routine and so on. I dislike being late for important things but if I have a fairly free day I tend to just follow my natural body clock. This means sleep late stay up late. Im a night person I guess.

I have thought about it, and I think all individuals could live without time. Only a community, or a larger group of people can't live without time.