The Indefinite Continued Progress of Existence

• Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

  —

  Wikipedia, Time (via baeddel)

  following you and @desert-gurl's discussion of the 'apparently', i went to have a look at when this definition was proposed. (and yes there is something funny about looking up when in time 'time' itself was defined by wikipedia editors)
  

  the first version of 'Time' was written in 2001, and was about a paragraph long, mostly focused on physics. for a few years, the intro gave a list two or three possible definitions - which seems to have the result of an edit war between users JimWae, Geologician and Banno, who couldn't agree on a simple definition. here's an example with three from during that fight. The talk page had some fierce discussion.

  After even more long discussion, eventually a new intro was written by Banno, which equivocates over providing a definition:

  Attempting to understand the nature of Time has always been a prime occupation for philosophers and scientists. Perhaps as a result of this considerable discussion, it is difficult to provide an uncontroversial and clear definition of the nature of time. This article begins by looking at some of the main philosophical and scientific issues relating to time.

  Banno described this as "an attempt to undo some of the damage the discussion between myself and Jim has done, by relegating the philosophical debate in the main to the philosophy section".

  For a pretty long time, Banno's new intro stood - despite some grumbling on the talk page as new users came along. The next change was in mid 2006, when 'Patrick' decided to add a new first sentence to mention the concepts of a time interval vs a point in time. This didn't last long. At some point an anonymous IP took a shot at it, but it was immediately reverted as a circular definition.
  

  The next big change was by Stevertigo in August, who was sufficiently fed up with this 'unacceptable' noncommital lede that he added a few paragraphs to give a phenomenological definition.
  

  Lede is unacceptable. Write something, anything, then write all the caveats people like. Enough avoiding disclaimers for a separate article.
  

  Not long after this, Jiohdi stepped in to prepend what they considered a 'neutral' definition, adding 'some think' to the beginning of Stevertigo's contribution.

  At this point, JimWae came back into the fray, feeling the need to return to a beginning that emphasises the 'realism' debate. This version describes 'two distinct views' of what time is, attributing one to Newton and the other to Leibniz and Kant.

  Stevertigo came back, denouncing this 'excess cookery' and arguing that the article should declare something rather than equivocate. Despite his complaints, the 'two views' intro survived (with minor wording changes) for more than a year.

  In Jan 2008, 'Potatoswatter' arrived to rewrite it, with a scientific definition as 'a dimension of our universe'. They then moved most of the rest of the intro into other sections, or outright deleted it.

  JimWae was not happy at this brushing over of philosophical controversy. He stepped in and put in another new intro; now time has become a 'fundamental component of our measuring system'. This definition immediately caused controversy, such as who the 'our' refers to. But this first sentence stuck, although the following sentences changed quite a bit. For example, 'the greatest scholars' appeared here, as another stab at acknowledging the controversy.

  In 2008, someone decided to quote a poem. Unusually, this stuck around several months.
  

  In 2009, Drcaldev objected to the references to 'event' and 'interval', and attempted to declare time a 'fundamental notion' or 'axiomatic concept'. JimWae slapped this attempt down a few hours later.

  In 2010, two years after the 'measuring system' definition was introduced, Stevertigo came back into the scene, objecting to this definition on grounds of 'WP:NONCE' (a policy against vague introductions which begin with the conceptual difficulties rather than a clear initial definition). JimWae did not like this, and reverted it shortly after, insisting the 'measuring system' definition was in fact an operational definition.

  Stevertigo then slapped the 'this intro is vague' banner on the article, and a week later carried out a block of edits over the course of a couple of hours attempting to give a proper definition of time.

  At this point things got quite heated:

  JimWae [deleting stevertigo's edits]: revert polysyllabic uninformative POV jargonese
  Stevertigo [restoring them]: Undid revert based on asshat ownership of article
  JimWae [replacing jimwae's text with yet another new definition]: your text is more than debatable - it is unsourced jargon that sheds no light on the topic in a general- purpose encyclopedia. It is also POV
  Stevertigo [deleting it and putting his back]: Your text is less than adequate - it is unsourceable philobabble without the merit of even an intuitive insight, let alone a source. "Time is a one-dimensional quantity…" Ha.

  The discussion page is about as heated (and apparently this 'tit for tat' editing was a deliberate strategy to contest Jim's perceived 'ownership' of the article). JimWae suggests time is a 'one-dimensional quantity', but Stevertigo now declares it instead to be a 'nonspatial continuum', following the American Heritage dictionary. This is where 'apparently irreversible' enters the article!

  At some point, Stevertigo suggests time may be a 'physical process', which JimWae finds dubious. The argument escalates, and a third person, Steve Quinn, gets involved. The second Steve begins with a splash by rewriting the intro again, while accusing Stevertigo of original research - which he does not appreciate.
  

  Stevertigo: Coming here out of the blue and calling my writing or seriously violates AGF [Assume Good Faith] and possibly DBAD [Don't Be A Dick]. Ive written an extensive critique on talk.
  

  The battle continues; Stevertigo suggests 'the underlying physical mechanisms that transform reality', which also gets slapped down.

  Modocc: time is not a mechanism and is unsupported,  according to the sources provided though it is a continuum
  

  The word 'apparent' is also disputed, specifically the 'apparent succession from past to present and into the future'.
  

  After this, the article seems to settle on a model with two 'has been defined as' statements… and then gets reverted back to some of the older versions, and for a couple of years the 'measuring system' definition comes back in.
  

  In mid 2012, the argument flares up again, and this appears to be where the above 'indefinite continued progress of existence' quote took form. Right now… I've spent hours compiling this and I'm kind of too tired to continue, so if this is interesting to people, I'll take a shot at breaking it down tomorrow. (I do notice that 'progress' was disputed, but yeah… too much for right now).
  

  (via baeddel)

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Source: https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/183904802087/time-is-the-indefinite-continued-progress-of