I'm not sure what you mean. You don't have to "tell" your position to "tell" the time. Time applies no matter where you are, but how time is applied is relative to your position in the universe. The sentence assumed something would be telling the time from the point of reference, given the conversation, but it could easily be simplified to: "The only reality of time is position relative to surroundings." -- I just deleted any context that implied an observer was present.

A rock has no concept of time, as far as we know, and is unaware of time. Time applies to the rock based on it's relative position to it's surroundings just the same, even though the rock cannot tell the time.

What is it you're getting at?

Time goes more slowly in higher gravitational fields. Clocks which are far from massive bodies (or at higher gravitational potentials) run faster, with or without an observer we assume, and clocks close to massive bodies (or at lower gravitational potentials) run slower. This is because gravitational time dilation is manifested in accelerated frames of reference or in the gravitational field of massive objects.

Yes, and I don't see what you're referring to. "The only reality of time is the position of the entity telling the time relative to it's surroundings."

So we have an observer telling the time. The reality of the time he tells is relative to his surroundings. What's wrong with that? How does it imply that if you can't tell your position relative to something else, time is not real?

Just because you can't tell your position doesn't mean you don't have a position. You're suggesting some sort of nonsense where there is no position involved, and in that sense, you're very right. If you do not have a position, time does not exist -- and neither do you.

You never even explained how you think it is with your own words.

I picked that one 'cause it's the craziest one I have Maybe I'll change it so this opinion of me doesn't drag on so much after this thread (since it really probably will be that simple).

He just thinks I'm crazy. If it's so difficult to answer this, I'm pretty sure he's just dodging:
So we have an observer telling the time. The reality of the time he tells is relative to his surroundings. What's wrong with that? Even if he can't see his surroundings, they still influence his reality of time. His perception of time, on the other hand, may be influenced by something else.

Nice one, fighting fire with fire, eh?

Time is the one thing that all of you have way too much of at your free disposal (as becomes obvious in threads like this(well me included as I have had time to read it)).

Time is also the resource that most of you are constantly lacking, that's why nobody here ever finishes any quality games: Back to work slackers!

It is a bit bleak. The calendar is only one aspect of this thing. There have been thousands of similar memes which crept into our civilizations and caused all sorts of problems we're mostly unaware of.

Another TED Talk on the subject I came across:
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html

A bit of an eye opener and is best understood after watching some Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins.

As she says, there isn't anything we can do about this other than recognize it and become more selective about what we imitate. We're all, more or less, biological machines which replicate ideas and pass them along. Some ideas are bad, and some ideas are good. That's why I said calling these things conspiracy theories doesn't cut it. They might be conspiracy theories, but I'd rather just refer to them as "bad ideas", only because I don't personally like them and believe they are the spawn of darkness

I wouldn't refer to it as a conspiracy if a bunch of people got together and conspired to create a TV series attempting to immunize children from the replication of bad memes. It would be a conspiracy, but moreover it's just a good idea

Oh, so it does. Well it would still be just a good idea then

Herein, I think, lies the core problem of your little philosophy. We are particularly predisposed to replicating these bad memes/ideas at the expense of the good ones. These bad ideas have not 'crept' in uninvited, their very existence and survival is precisely a result of the medium that they fester in. You have noticed the symptoms of the problem, the bad ideas, and stopped right there without seeing the actual root of the problem, the rotten human mind. You can't immunize children from replicating bad memes anymore than you can immunize them from breathing air: it's in their nature, going against which is futile. You think you and those people you keep quoting are the first ones to notice these problems? I am sure they have been noticed thousands times before, thousands of years before. And to what end? Nothing is solved.

Life is a Kobayashi Maru scenario, and the only solution is Kirk's

Especially if you were parked in front of the TV when you were a kid

Yes, but not everyone has been aware of them. They've been able to just roam free because we've been largely unaware of what's actually going on.

All humans are not evil, rotten creatures by nature. We become rotten, or good in contrast, only by what influences us.

I don't think that's true. Teaching children good memes, and then teaching them about the bad memes, will cause them to reject bad memes and spread good memes as they evolve. If you allow them to see both sides of things -- and most things only have two sides with infinite variation on either -- they can choose which side they want to represent.

No, but I do think it is grossly undervalued information. Many people do not realize the real problem, which is why we get conspiracy theories.

I'm starting to think of life as a complicated game of prisoner's dilemma

[edit]

I wasn't trying to associate the Gregorian calendar with the movie, though I guess I should have assumed people would think of the movie. I expected the supporting quote to be read (which was stupid of me), so I posted it twice and bolded parts the second time, and thought I had described the matrix enough to separate it from the ideas in the movie and associate the matrix with our flawed perception of time (and not some Hollywood production)
Mentioning that they should make a movie about it was just intended a joke, I didn't want you to associate it with the movie. I even said "The film does discuss things of this nature, but The Matrix in The Matrix is not The Matrix of reality (AFAIK)"

I'm pretty sure a discussion about this stuff on this medium is greatly prone to failure. The topic is far too big in scope, and the post content isn't read or understood in it's entirety.

A lot of this could be explained by people taking special notice of the unusual (evil) and so naturally it takes on a proportionally greater significance than warranted. So people and their memes aren't as evil as they seem. Just sayin'...

I agree. I think all of those cool pot t-shirts are what started you down the crazy path.