(4)Definition of Simultaneity and Sequence

According to the previous definition, time is the relationship between different states of the world as a whole resulting from changes in the structure and function of matter. Time relation includes simultaneous relation and sequential relation. Then what is simultaneous relation? If a person sees an object and at the same time sees another object, the two objects produce two senses in the person's consciousness, and the two senses appear in consciousness at the same time, so that the two senses will establish some of the same associations with other consciousness. What is meant by simultaneity is actually the commonality of this conscious association.

So what kind of associations are made in consciousness? People can feel their body changes and their happiness and sorrow every day, people arrange these feelings, this arrangement is a kind of time order. This chronological order becomes a frame of reference, and when the person observes other phenomena, they correspond to the person's feelings about themselves. For example, I started playing football when I was 9 years old, and that year I saw wreaths at Tiananmen Square in memory of Zhou Enlai. These two senses are connected in my consciousness. So time is essentially an associative relationship between consciousness. Or we may say that there is no abstract time in the world at all, but only concrete substances and their changes, when man observes these changes, he sets up a category in order to deal with their interrelations. The category of time is a kind of consciousness.

Definition: The simultaneous relationship is a close connection in mind between two direct experiences.

Everything is moving and changing. If the results of any two direct observations of the same thing are different, then the sequential relationship between the two observations is called the sequential relationship of time.

Definition: The relationships of "before" and "after" are the order of direct experience in consciousness.

Multiple experiences of an object that is constantly changing form a set in which there are specific causal relationships between the elements. Let A be the set of different experiences of several positions of an object in motion, a1, a2,... are elements in this set. There are two such sets A and B for two objects, and there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of the two sets. For example, a1 corresponds to b1, a2 corresponds to b2,...... . Each correspondence is derived from one direct observation. When I think of a1, I think of b1. Let a1 precede a2 and b1 precede b2, since a1 corresponds to b1 and a2 corresponds to b2,... then we can deduce that a1 precede b2 and b1 precede a2. Time can therefore refer to the sequence of several things. All the sequence of the manifestations of different things is thus derived. The correspondence and sequence relation between sets can be regarded as a kind of structural relation. So time is a kind of structural relation.

(5)The Subjectivity and Objectivity of Time