Concept of Time

[Tyd]

Why do we have a definition of time? A universal rhythm we have defined as 1 second.

I know this is a very generic question - I just want to propose a new angle at which to look at this age old question.

Coming from a physics background I recently was introduced to a novel thought. If you imagine the brain is a processor for our conciousness. When we look outside with our eyes we see objects "outside". When in reality the image is within our brain, it is just processing the photons received through our eyes and producing a "3D" image which we interpret as being "out there". If you consider this and photons travelling at the speed of light, doesn't that also theoretically mean your brain must process this information at the speed of light to keep up with it?

Now even if this is not the case we know that our brain consists of neurons firing electrons around as information and these connections become "thoughts" (very vague I know, correct me if I'm wrong). Electrons are defined as having mass and we know they can travel close to the speed of light, 2/3rds for example. From general relativity, which is proven, an object we define as having mass when travelling near the speed of light experiences time slower than an identical object at rest. For example the well known paradox of the two twins, one travelling at the speed of light one stays on earth, the twin in the rocket ship returns to earth younger than the twin on earth. That kind of physics is proven.

So to my point.. if our brain is processing information close to the speed of light it must be experiencing time slower than real time. Or indeed if our brain is processing information at the speed of light then we must be outside of time. (what the fuck right?)

If this is true, why have we developed this notion of "time"? Our seconds, why did we invent this? When under the influence of strong psychedelics are we just removing this filter that has been developed or instilled into us? However I'm not looking for a historical answer here, I can understand how days and years were developed by the ancients to keep track of the Earth's rotation around the sun. I'm looking for a deeper solution, what is happening when we delve right down to the core of existence, electrons, protons, quarks etc. These exist in everything, all of us.

I have no answer. I'd love to hear other ideas as I'm sure everyone must have their own concept of time, it being so universal. :D

 

[alasdairm]

If you consider this and photons travelling at the speed of light, doesn't that also theoretically mean your brain must process this information at the speed of light to keep up with it?

not necessarily. we could just always be just behind 'reality' by a miniscule amount of time.

alasdair

 

[sykosis1]

Well I know for me personally as a lucid dreamer I experience time in my dreams, I can not keep track of it but I do have timers and countdowns that i use for some adventure I may be on.

Now I know for a fact I can be asleep for 20 minutes and have a dream that has sequences that last far over 20 minutes as in counting down and timeline of information and activities done while in the lucid dream which I am completely aware of.

So when you sleep do you process information faster or slower? Because it is obvious to any dreamer that time while dreaming and time spent "awake" is far different yet can be accounted for.. like time on a clock and timers.

Time is nothing but an illusion created through senses that is dependent on current state of consiousness and mindset. Awake experience X amount, asleep experience Y amount with rules being altered, Halluscinigen Z amount etc.

 

[paridiso]

There have been some studies showing that there's a lag between you receiving sensory information and being consciously aware of it. In one interesting study some scientists found out that if they asked a person a simple yes/no question while monitoring their brain waves they could accurately predict their answer a few milliseconds before the person was consciously aware that they had made a decision.

The electrons speed wouldn't affect how the brain perceives time. Time is only slowed down for the individual electron, not the entire brain.

As for the concept of time, my guess would be it was formed sometime during our early evolution when our brains were first developing.

Oh and 3D space is an illusion too.

 

[ebola?]

WARNING: stoned out ramble

This is an issue that became a recent point of musing of mine with a friend (over party favors ). With (what I understand of) Heidegger, in some way, we ARE time, insofar as we emerge into existence.

The body of preconditions logically prior to existence (that is, the set of possibilities which structure what can emerge, as actually existent), which render possible the universe coming to partial awareness of itself, might require that such perception play out temporally.

In other words, from a perspective prior to temporality, we might find a set of conditions necessitating experiences of time within some domains (thus also barring complete awareness, inclusive of those conditions that give rise to awareness and time).

Now very speculatively:

Our consciousnessess, rooted in neural activity, entails intensive and extensive self-referential modeling, emerging as experiences of the universe coming to various partial self-awarenessess. It could then be through time that such experiences emerge as visible and then intelligible, setting awareness, setting the actual, into motion, bursting out.

Both bound temporally, neural activity and the universe's self-consciousness exhibit order solely temporally. Otherwise, no causal events would actually occur, nor may any events emerge for observation...the possible would not come to pass as actual, as existent.

Psychedelics might hint at what processes conditions the emergence of such experiences: any 'moment' of 'actual existence', inheres in a cradle of latent possibilities, not yet actualized, but structuring where actuality, moving through time, can 'go' and what shapes it can take. To the extent that psychedelics pull consciousness COMPLETELY into this web of possibility, prior to 'actuality in motion', we have satori / +4 / ego death....consciousness retreats (but expands) beyond actualized existence as 'something' 'definite'....an existent thing (existence), instead encompassing the 'void'.*

redux: the structure of the universe writ large dictates that it comes to awareness in time insofar as it comes to awareness at all.

note: i will have to work further if I'm to reckon all this with current theories of physics.

ebola
*: void is not quite right....we should think of a 'space' prior to the distinction between existent and nonexistent.

I think I failed here (look at that prose ).

 

[Tyd]

So when you sleep do you process information faster or slower? Because it is obvious to any dreamer that time while dreaming and time spent "awake" is far different yet can be accounted for.. like time on a clock and timers.

Time is nothing but an illusion created through senses that is dependent on current state of consiousness and mindset. Awake experience X amount, asleep experience Y amount with rules being altered, Halluscinigen Z amount etc.

I like this idea. I've wondered that as well.. when I experience time in my sleep why is it so distorted compared to my waking idea of time hmm.

@Paridiso That study sounds really interesting do you happen to have a link to it? When they say they can predict before the patient is consciously aware how can they be sure? The only way the patient could relay that information is by speech or to press a button which there will be a delay in which the signals must travel to the muscles etc and make them confirm. Is it not impossible to tell otherwise that the patient knows or not? If they can see his thought having occurred surely he thought it therefore knowing his answer. Maybe they thought of this and have an explanation? Sounds really cool.

Though I'm still inclined to think that electrons 'should' affect how the brain perceives time. Effectively your neurons all work together sending signals to each other via electrons that induce chemical reactions etc so I can see where a lag comes about (chemical reactions). But still even if the overall time at which this processing is happening is a fraction of the speed of light, the "thought" could have it's own frame of reference that experiences it's own time. Then again this is all assumptions as how do you define a thought and how is a thought connected to consciousness..

Whats your idea on 3D space?

@ebola

I kind of see where you're coming from.. time is a concept necessary for our existence? Our conscious existence? Or am I over-simplifying your point. There may be an existence prior to our lives in which time does not exist but by existing we our helping the awareness of the universe? I would probably agree mostly and say it makes sense but the universe as a whole is not experiencing time all the same. We as human consciousness have a definition of time but whos to say photons don't have a collective consciousness? Maybe higher evolved and existing in a dimension we can't be aware of where time is a constant, ie. no time. Also in black holes our idea of time breaks down and ceases to exist yet we know there are these objects called black holes. Well that's all we know to be honest.. we have no idea what goes on within (or even through?). Haha I'm throwing a lot of spanners into the works here.. lots of different theories. Probably we should just keep the discussion to theories that have been experimentally proved otherwise my mind will probably explode with all the possibilities!

 

[Pegasus]

It seems to me that humans have for the most part a pretty similar concept of time, based on biological factors. Cats would logically have a different sense of time, as would other animals with other lifespans. Time is something we all experience, so it makes sense that we try to quantify it.

For me, the real question with time is just what it is in the first place... Why does it even exist? I know that I will never know the answer, but I can't help but think about it at times...

 

[ebola?]

.

I like this idea. I've wondered that as well.. when I experience time in my sleep why is it so distorted compared to my waking idea of time hmm.

They've actually tested this with proficient lucid dreamers: under observation, participants were instructed to blink once every second when viable (this is one of the few parts of the body not paralyzed during REM sleep). It turned out that their subjective seconds closely matched seconds on the clock.

However...we have to somehow account for those dreams that seem to last for 1+ days. I believe that disruption of short term memory has a lot to do with it (ie, not knowing how one arrived at a particular moment in the dream for a given moment).

@Paridiso That study sounds really interesting do you happen to have a link to it?

I think I remember a little about it. IIRC, nearly fully formed neuro-motor signals (ie, specifying specific movements to be made by the body) preceded the subject's awareness of having made the decision to answer in the experimental trial. I'm not sure how such awareness was measured though.....damn...

I kind of see where you're coming from.. time is a concept necessary for our existence? Our conscious existence?

Yeah, that's sort of the gist (of one key point)....we should remember that we exist as conscious actors though...so through this frame, we can't really separate agency and perception.

I would probably agree mostly and say it makes sense but the universe as a whole is not experiencing time all the same.

Mmmmm...i wasn't casting the universe as a whole that experiences stuff per se; rather, this universe/multiverse/etc. leads to the emergence of 'loops' where parts of the universe come to experience select aspects of the universe in some way. But yes, I was arguing that one could not apply time as a property of the universe 'in itself' (we can't leave the universe to take a look from outside to see that it has time, of course ).

We as human consciousness have a definition of time but whos to say photons don't have a collective consciousness?

Could be... We wouldn't know. However, you remind me of a point i neglected: because time coevolves with experience/agency/discovery/creation, its 'meter' 'ticks' along with these processes. Because humans are thoroughly social organisms, time very often functions to allow synchronous engagement by multiple beings, and thus intersubjectivity.

Maybe higher evolved and existing in a dimension we can't be aware of where time is a constant, ie. no time.

If it weren't clear, my posting has just been idle speculation. However, I would predict this elimination of temporal conditioning to eliminate experience and engagement. I would tentatively say that this would eliminate the 'space' through which part of the universe comes to engage and thus experience itself by forming loops of auto-engagement.

Also in black holes our idea of time breaks down and ceases to exist yet we know there are these objects called black holes. Well that's all we know to be honest..

We don't know, as the corresponding mathematical models can't describe them (ie, some variables take on infinite values, precluding solving these equations).

ebola

 

[sssssssssss]

i cant help but say that time and everything literally moves slower on ketamine

which leads me to think that time moves as fast as your brain is processing
so if you were inside someone elses nervous system, time and everything in the universe would move slower or faster

but thats also the same concept of wondering if my blue isnt actually ur red.
but you cant accurately measure light because you would have to measure how fast it travels from the source to your eyes, how fast your cones and rods are moving, then how fast your brain processes.

this is why when ur having fun, time goes by quickly, when ur bored, its slow and when ur dreaming it seems to last forever.

i think a black hole is literally something spinning so fast that it moves faster than the speed of light so you cant see what it is. and since its in motion it has electomagnetivity, and i think the faster the spin, the greater the electromagnetivity, so its pulling things into its super fast spin.
which also makes me think that a blackhole could also be the very center of of everything with electromagnetivity

 

[Tyd]

@ebola

I agree with pretty much everything you said, I especially enjoy your colourful use of language , makes everything read really well and gets your point across clearly!

One part that I don't necessarily 'disagree' with but rather.. have my own view/belief of.

However, I would predict this elimination of temporal conditioning to eliminate experience and engagement. I would tentatively say that this would eliminate the 'space' through which part of the universe comes to engage and thus experience itself by forming loops of auto-engagement.

I think this territory delves beyond science and into spirituality for me personally. If I leave my scientific conditioning behind my heart/spirit wants me to believe that if this were the case this is where nirvana exists. A state of pure being, pure consciousness and love. The 'space' in which we currently reside in, consciously and physically, I now think must involve time as a necessary function of existence.

@ ssssssssss

It's an interesting thought whether my blue is your red etc, true. But colour really is just a distinct band of wavelength of light. Red being ~630nm, blue ~475nm, quantifiable information. How we interpret the light however is interesting.. We might both see 475nm light and have been conditioned to recognise that its called "blue" but what if I have a disorder I've never been aware of that sends this light through a filter and I receive ~630nm light. I'll still call it blue and think it's blue light but my definition is wrong, so effectively yeah maybe my blue is your red! I have no idea if a disorder like this exists, maybe being colour-blind is something like this?

Though I have to correct you on the black hole theory since there are things we can say with a high degree of certainty. A black hole is spinning yes but its only gravity that affects the electromagnetic waves known as light. The spin of the black hole doesn't affect it's gravity, but it's the gravity of the black hole that causes it's blackness. The gravity is so powerful that photons can't escape from it therefore there are no light signals coming from them that we could use to see. Just around a black hole however there is an accretion disk and within this disk the closer you go to the event horizon the hotter matter becomes via friction. This matter can then become hot enough that it emits gamma rays (X-Rays) which we can see interestingly enough.. Sorry if I rambled here explaining a black hole, hopefully its interesting!

 

[sssssssssss]

Yeah ive learned about that, but i believe in electromagnetic attraction rather than gravity.

The core of the earth is made of iron and since all atoms are spinning, they generate electromagnetic waves that are attracted to the center of the earth.

Then the earths iron is also attracted to the sun because of its core spin. everything is spinning and attracting. and if the spin is great enough in a star, they say the star collapses on itself and forms a black hole. but i dont think it collapses i think it just begins to spin faster than the speed of light causing the protons to move faster and therefore undetectable (which is also why they say that black holes only form from massive stars... because its spinning so fast it pulls all surrounding matter into it and everything near is at high temps because its also spinning so fast)

I then think that eventually the blackhole attracts so much matter that it then slows down and becomes a star again.

and i think white dwarfs are formed when the star spins too slowly.

a simple test for this would be to see if venus is getting farther away, and mars is getting closer to earth. if yes, then we are being sucked into the sun at inceasing speeds.

maybe the lost city of atlantis was actually located on venus and noahs arc was a spaceship.

 

[isStellablue]

Most of us here have experienced the "illusion" of physical existence. Physicists have found, at the subatomic level, that the normal laws of space and time are confused.
As a Christian I believe that "space time" is a creation of God and that He exists outside of "spacetime". As such I see both space and time as illusions. God exists in the "eternal present"
which is reality.