Real time information processing II: What is “real” time?

THE PASSING OF TIME, which is a familiar experience to all of us as individuals, also represents an important frame of reference for the scholastic endeavors. Speculations concerning the nature of time have an ancient and honorable history in many areas of understanding, particularly in philosophy, physics, and the more mathematically oriented sciences. Time has been introduced as a fundamental descriptor of events, and has been considered in such forms as absolute and relative time, subjective and objective time, and intuitive time, to name only a few points of view. Until recent years, however, no serious concern seems to have been given to the possibility of a real and non-real conception of time. The purpose of this discussion will be to consider some of the more common views of real time, to indicate some of the difficulties involved in their application, and finally to suggest an approach to the problem of definition.