Time

Skybird · 10-27-19, 07:33 AM

http://themindunleashed.com/2015/02/...ever-will.html

I stumbled over this, but at a good time, the timing is very good indeed, since some months, lets say around last winter, I somehow feel increasingly uncomfortable with our common conceptions about what time is. I lack the physics education to systematically explore the nature of time - stupid as I am I thought it to be a briliant idea to study psychology, fool that I am - but i always have had an intense amateur's interets in sciences of different branches, and especially astronomy and physics and cosmology, and read abut these frequently. Today you are still beign looked at in a queer way when you doubt the doninating diogma about what time is, and that it even exists, but if I am honest I must admit that I shift more and more towards indeed doubting this: that time exists. As a quality, process, flow of events - somehow I increaisngly feel uncomfrotable with it, cannot like it anymore.

I used to make this joke, that is t=f(m), time understood as a function of time, as if that were such a brilliant formula! And maybe I was on somethign true there, not just in an easy-handed humorours way, but in a serious way that so far I had not even correctly understood myself. Maybe we indeed are not more than pages of a book ripped out, scattered across the floor - and the tale on each side forming the contexts by which to connect to the other pages, but in no preset order, so that the infinite combinations allow infinite numbers of narrations when sorting the pages totogether in this way, or in that way, or in a completely different seqeunce...

I practiced meditation for the better part of my life, I also taught meditation for many years, daily. Here are experiences with timelessness that completely collide and contradict to the usual concpetion of time that I submitted to again when entering "ordnary" everyday life again. I now wonder why this has never caught my attention earlier. Talking of a stubborn donkey, maybe... Interestingly, the descriptions by Barbour in the essay seem to meet views of the matter as expressed in Buddhism and Buddhist psychology abiut the nature of the human mind and the essence of the present moment. Well. Maybe it is no river flowing indeed. Maybe its a still. And another still. And another one. And more. From mediation, I know such states of mind, it can be quite confusing at first, irritating. But wouldnt it be fascinating if modern science concepts would meet this understanding of time not beign existent at all? Maybe Einstein has not spoken the last word yet on all this.

At least I learned one or two new names from that reading that I could use to search on the book market.

Jimbuna · 10-27-19, 07:55 AM

Far too deep for my simple mind but how would the world and the inhabitants organise just about everything without any sense of time?

Skybird · 10-27-19, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Far too deep for my simple mind but how would the world and the inhabitants organise just about everything without any sense of time?

Every "Now" is an organised, complete set in itself. Maybe like pics in a flicker book.

Jimbuna · 10-27-19, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Every "Now" is an organised, complete set in itself. Maybe like pics in a flicker book.

I'll take your word for it

Commander Wallace · 10-27-19, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Far too deep for my simple mind but how would the world and the inhabitants organise just about everything without any sense of time?

I agree with you and Sky and I'm thinking with as complex as our lives and schedules are, meditation would be a good idea to internally organize and categorize everything of any importance, in our respective lives.

Pisces · 10-27-19, 08:28 AM

Time being the perception of change (as from Julian Barbour's End of Time) is what it all comes down to when you think of it. Movement of objects around you (arms of the clock or planets/stars in the sky) or changes in forces and fields (digital clocks affected by the alternating flow of electrons, body chemistry affecting your internal housekeeping) But I don't have the brains though to come up with a means of how all these instances of changes come together. The only Planck-time experience I have is when I hit my head on one.

Skybird · 10-27-19, 08:36 AM

A crook, thats how I sometime try to make sense of it.
Some map-basing tabletop cosims like Assault! had hexfield map elements that could be aligned to any other map segment, with any rim of theirs connecting just any rim of the other segment - and still the seam would allow streets, rivers, forests mountains continue seemleassly. So if you connect two such elements, you could rotate any of them, and sitll woudl have gotten a palyable map, while the map in total would be aslightly different.

Imagine the Now-moments, every single moment, being ike this: images that makes sense to you no matter at which angle you rotate them and look at them then: rotate it by 90° to any side, and still, the image would be making sense in its new position. Then combine this image with the images of other cards, and collect them toegther into one flicker book.

All other moments exist at the same "time", and in the same place. Like there can exist an infintie number of waves in the same point of space. What we perceive is the unflding of events, is just the chnage from one flicker image to the other, the stack of them all glued to ether so that to our eyes at least the all seat in the same space. .

Its just a crooky analogy, i know.

Or think a photographer taking a picture with infinite multi-exposure of one and the same frame.

We perceive the flowing of time, yes. Nut maybe we fall to an illusion there, like we fall to the illusion of moving images when watching a cellulloid movie.

Deep meditation can lead the practitioner to a state of mind, where he kind of disconnects from this flow of individual frames. They keep existing , but the motion is gone, and he becomes aware of their real nature as indivdual stills. More, he may make the experience that he can at will switch between them, at whatever a speed, backwards and forward.

Mind you: "crook". All words are crooks.

Time may be nothing else but the illusion of individual moments racing by , each of them being a still. Whatever we do, we do it in this one single moment we call "the presence". When we remember the past, we do not connect to the past - the past is not there. We think and imagine about what we think it was, and we use traces of the past around us that evertehless are not the past, but part of our present moment. But we remember the past - in the present moment. We do not coknnect to a future, for there is non future wheh we think about the future. We form mages about the future, but we form them - in the present moment again.

The present moment is all that we really have. No past. No future. Just the present. Memories of the past we hold - in the present. Fears of and expectations for the future we build - in the present.

Rockstar · 10-27-19, 09:51 AM

I've read some theory about space time and its absolutely mind boggling. I know if you ask most anyone what is time? They will reply with educated authority that time is a social construct. Which to a point is true, we use a socially agreed upon method to tell time whether its the movement of a decaying cesium-133 atom or the heavens above. But our social construct can only tell us what time it is, it does not in anyway tell us 'what' time is. Time can also be subjective, how many times have you felt the end of a work day will never arrive, yet the person next to you thinks the day has gone by fast?

There is some theory out there which indicate there is no division of past present or future but that we could theoretically exist in all three states. Nor is time as Newton suggested absolute throughtout the universe rather it is dependent on how fast we travel through space time and our proximity to mass. The more you have of one the less you will have of the other. As this kewl little app will show https://www.timewarperapp.org/.

Anyway we can see and feel the effects of time which itself is not observable. what exactly time is I dont have a clue.

Skybird · 10-27-19, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rockstar

time is a social construct.

I like that. Transferred to long time memory database for later use.

Further, this ancient metaphor:

http://the-wanderling.com/indras_net.html

Not exactly the same aim, but somehow it sounds linked.

Eichhörnchen · 10-27-19, 12:49 PM

Too big a subject for my small brain, but I always find talk of time as a dimension alongside measurements of physical space to be nonsensical

I do like the current thinking about 'mindfulness', and that this moment is all there is; I watched the movie 'Bohemian Rhapsody' last night and was taken by a Queen song lyric describing the future as being only "our present"... so true when you think about it... and it chimes with Sky's notion of time being simply existential 'snapshots' which can be viewed from any angle and fit into a narrative which extends in any and all directions (Sky's hexagon theory)

There was a fascinating Radio 4 documentary recently about the possibility or otherwise of time travel, but maybe that's for another thread

Oh and I just had a beer, so somebody please tell me whether any of this was helpful

Skybird · 10-27-19, 03:04 PM

Ah, somebody has read Vonnegut.

Catfish, this next friday and Saturday, some German TV channel shows all 3 episodes of the film Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. I dont know wether its a good film or not, seems to be just a few years old.

mapuc · 10-27-19, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Ah, somebody has read Vonnegut.

Catfish, this next friday and Saturday, some German TV channel shows all 3 episodes of the film Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. I dont know wether its a good film or not, seems to be just a few years old.

RTL 2 Saturday 2 Nov 20.15.

Markus

Catfish · 10-28-19, 09:32 AM

^ Thanks Sky, and Mapuc

Skybird · 10-28-19, 09:54 AM

Part 1 on Friday already! Part 2+3 on Saturday.

10-27-19, 07:33 AM	#1
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,603 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Time http://themindunleashed.com/2015/02/...ever-will.html I stumbled over this, but at a good time, the timing is very good indeed, since some months, lets say around last winter, I somehow feel increasingly uncomfortable with our common conceptions about what time is. I lack the physics education to systematically explore the nature of time - stupid as I am I thought it to be a briliant idea to study psychology, fool that I am - but i always have had an intense amateur's interets in sciences of different branches, and especially astronomy and physics and cosmology, and read abut these frequently. Today you are still beign looked at in a queer way when you doubt the doninating diogma about what time is, and that it even exists, but if I am honest I must admit that I shift more and more towards indeed doubting this: that time exists. As a quality, process, flow of events - somehow I increaisngly feel uncomfrotable with it, cannot like it anymore. I used to make this joke, that is t=f(m), time understood as a function of time, as if that were such a brilliant formula! And maybe I was on somethign true there, not just in an easy-handed humorours way, but in a serious way that so far I had not even correctly understood myself. Maybe we indeed are not more than pages of a book ripped out, scattered across the floor - and the tale on each side forming the contexts by which to connect to the other pages, but in no preset order, so that the infinite combinations allow infinite numbers of narrations when sorting the pages totogether in this way, or in that way, or in a completely different seqeunce... I practiced meditation for the better part of my life, I also taught meditation for many years, daily. Here are experiences with timelessness that completely collide and contradict to the usual concpetion of time that I submitted to again when entering "ordnary" everyday life again. I now wonder why this has never caught my attention earlier. Talking of a stubborn donkey, maybe... Interestingly, the descriptions by Barbour in the essay seem to meet views of the matter as expressed in Buddhism and Buddhist psychology abiut the nature of the human mind and the essence of the present moment. Well. Maybe it is no river flowing indeed. Maybe its a still. And another still. And another one. And more. From mediation, I know such states of mind, it can be quite confusing at first, irritating. But wouldnt it be fascinating if modern science concepts would meet this understanding of time not beign existent at all? Maybe Einstein has not spoken the last word yet on all this. At least I learned one or two new names from that reading that I could use to search on the book market. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert. Last edited by Skybird; 10-27-19 at 07:46 AM.

10-27-19, 07:55 AM	#2
Jimbuna Chief of the Boat Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: 250 metres below the surface Posts: 190,473 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 13	Far too deep for my simple mind but how would the world and the inhabitants organise just about everything without any sense of time? __________________ Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. Oh my God, not again!!

10-27-19, 08:28 AM	#6
Pisces Silent Hunter Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: AN9771 Posts: 4,904 Downloads: 304 Uploads: 0	Time being the perception of change (as from Julian Barbour's End of Time) is what it all comes down to when you think of it. Movement of objects around you (arms of the clock or planets/stars in the sky) or changes in forces and fields (digital clocks affected by the alternating flow of electrons, body chemistry affecting your internal housekeeping) But I don't have the brains though to come up with a means of how all these instances of changes come together. The only Planck-time experience I have is when I hit my head on one. __________________ My site downloads: https://ricojansen.nl/downloads

10-27-19, 08:36 AM	#7
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,603 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	A crook, thats how I sometime try to make sense of it. Some map-basing tabletop cosims like Assault! had hexfield map elements that could be aligned to any other map segment, with any rim of theirs connecting just any rim of the other segment - and still the seam would allow streets, rivers, forests mountains continue seemleassly. So if you connect two such elements, you could rotate any of them, and sitll woudl have gotten a palyable map, while the map in total would be aslightly different. Imagine the Now-moments, every single moment, being ike this: images that makes sense to you no matter at which angle you rotate them and look at them then: rotate it by 90° to any side, and still, the image would be making sense in its new position. Then combine this image with the images of other cards, and collect them toegther into one flicker book. All other moments exist at the same "time", and in the same place. Like there can exist an infintie number of waves in the same point of space. What we perceive is the unflding of events, is just the chnage from one flicker image to the other, the stack of them all glued to ether so that to our eyes at least the all seat in the same space. . Its just a crooky analogy, i know. Or think a photographer taking a picture with infinite multi-exposure of one and the same frame. We perceive the flowing of time, yes. Nut maybe we fall to an illusion there, like we fall to the illusion of moving images when watching a cellulloid movie. Deep meditation can lead the practitioner to a state of mind, where he kind of disconnects from this flow of individual frames. They keep existing , but the motion is gone, and he becomes aware of their real nature as indivdual stills. More, he may make the experience that he can at will switch between them, at whatever a speed, backwards and forward. Mind you: "crook". All words are crooks. Time may be nothing else but the illusion of individual moments racing by , each of them being a still. Whatever we do, we do it in this one single moment we call "the presence". When we remember the past, we do not connect to the past - the past is not there. We think and imagine about what we think it was, and we use traces of the past around us that evertehless are not the past, but part of our present moment. But we remember the past - in the present moment. We do not coknnect to a future, for there is non future wheh we think about the future. We form mages about the future, but we form them - in the present moment again. The present moment is all that we really have. No past. No future. Just the present. Memories of the past we hold - in the present. Fears of and expectations for the future we build - in the present. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

10-27-19, 09:51 AM	#8
Rockstar In the Brig Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Zendia Bar & Grill Posts: 12,614 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	I've read some theory about space time and its absolutely mind boggling. I know if you ask most anyone what is time? They will reply with educated authority that time is a social construct. Which to a point is true, we use a socially agreed upon method to tell time whether its the movement of a decaying cesium-133 atom or the heavens above. But our social construct can only tell us what time it is, it does not in anyway tell us 'what' time is. Time can also be subjective, how many times have you felt the end of a work day will never arrive, yet the person next to you thinks the day has gone by fast? There is some theory out there which indicate there is no division of past present or future but that we could theoretically exist in all three states. Nor is time as Newton suggested absolute throughtout the universe rather it is dependent on how fast we travel through space time and our proximity to mass. The more you have of one the less you will have of the other. As this kewl little app will show https://www.timewarperapp.org/. Anyway we can see and feel the effects of time which itself is not observable. what exactly time is I dont have a clue. Last edited by Rockstar; 10-27-19 at 12:42 PM.

10-27-19, 12:49 PM	#10
Eichhörnchen Starte das Auto Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: The Fens Posts: 17,373 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Too big a subject for my small brain, but I always find talk of time as a dimension alongside measurements of physical space to be nonsensical I do like the current thinking about 'mindfulness', and that this moment is all there is; I watched the movie 'Bohemian Rhapsody' last night and was taken by a Queen song lyric describing the future as being only "our present"... so true when you think about it... and it chimes with Sky's notion of time being simply existential 'snapshots' which can be viewed from any angle and fit into a narrative which extends in any and all directions (Sky's hexagon theory) There was a fascinating Radio 4 documentary recently about the possibility or otherwise of time travel, but maybe that's for another thread Oh and I just had a beer, so somebody please tell me whether any of this was helpful __________________

10-27-19, 03:04 PM	#11
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,603 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Ah, somebody has read Vonnegut. Catfish, this next friday and Saturday, some German TV channel shows all 3 episodes of the film Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. I dont know wether its a good film or not, seems to be just a few years old. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

10-28-19, 09:32 AM	#13
Catfish Dipped Squirrel Operative Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: ..where the ocean meets the sky Posts: 17,765 Downloads: 38 Uploads: 0	^ Thanks Sky, and Mapuc __________________ >^..^<*)))>{ All generalizations are wrong.

10-28-19, 09:54 AM	#14
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,603 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Part 1 on Friday already! Part 2+3 on Saturday. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.