Can the flow of time be stopped or slowed? Is time an illusion?

it depends on your perspective of time. it can get slow when you are waiting for someone and run fast when you are relaxing.

I read an interesting article in Time magazine just now about our brains and our minds. We are all time travellers. Our bodies travel through time, minute by minute, hour by hour. At this stage of our technology, we have no other options in that area. Our minds, though, travel willingly through the past, present and future. We remember and relive past events; we are experiencing the present now, we plan for and dream about the future. Personally, I don't think time is necessarily an illusion but I do think it's pliable in our minds, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes not. As some have already mentioned, time is relative. As children, it's forever until next Christmas. As adults, we fill our days (the present) will so much activity, so many responsibilities, so much everything, that time seems to fly past far too fast. Perhaps through meditation, we can make our own time stand still, but it will continue to move forward for the rest of the universe around us. What was, still is. What is, will become what was. What will be, will become what is. At this point in "time," we are powerless to change the inevitability of "time."

I believe it can be, but the question is how can it be done? We now know of 10 dimensions in Quantum Physics. We also know that history could have happened in many different ways. Our brains can do so much, but we are not tapping into their true potential.

Well, that is just a good question and that got me thinking some more. I don't really know for sure about that. I would agree with the way you're looking at it. I think it sounds very logical.

well albert einstein also prove that time travel is impossible too, and there is no way of stoping time, we can all pretent it is stop by saying it is not moving, but there is no way for it to stop or slow down, past is not really gone, it just history present is a gift so we should enjoy it, and futrue is unknow that because we should be looking forward to the excitment

I believe flow of time can never be stopped. We also flow or say float with time......it is time which takes us ahead in our journey....it never stops...it just gallops and we do not even realise....that how many years we have spent....and will continue to do so.

Einstein was right. Time is very funny, it is running fast when we want to stop it and it slows down when we want to make it faster.

Time seems pretty real to me, but then I have nothing else to compare it to. I'd be curious to see if there will eventually be some way to move forward or back in time, but I don't know if it will ever happen.

IS this why some dats seem longer than other days and when we were kids to me it seemed like days lasted longer than now

I think the idea: to stop the time, only a trying of human-mind, to forget about the reality, and destiny.

What an interesting subject polachicago. I've never been very interested in science fiction, more of a realist I guess, but as you see more and more science fiction fantasies of the past become reality, I honestly don't know anymore. What a thought provoking thread to wake up to, it's early here in Thailand.

Hi thats a great discussion (sorry a little late in responding) I watched a documentary on whether time stood still or whether it went slower when people went through trauma. They couldn't do a real accident so they tested someone by dropping them off a tall building by bungee cord then flashed a time up half way down for an instant of a second, so quick that you wouldn't normally be able to see it. When the guy got off the bungee cord he was able to tell them the exact time they had flashed up on this board. So whether that is proof or not I'm not sure. Interesting though.

Time is all made up you can only measure time by using the sun that is all clocks do. When you fly in a plane somtimes you get places before you left. If you could travel the speed of light you go and have dinner at five hop in you maching go have lunch and then hop in you machine again and go have breakfast

hey let me clear one thing with you, the experiment which have been done were done in space, and were planned perfectly.... now when we travel fast in space our biological age does not increase fast, but this doesn't mean that the time has slowed.....

You know kids minds move at the same rate or faster but if they moved faster everting would be slower they would have better reatcion time like when my mom dropped a flower vase when i was 16 i grabbed it before it hit the ground but everything slowed down. The reason days seem longer now is becuase you remeber every detail of what you did today and you dont remeber your 13th birthday as well the present always seems longer trust me