+joc Posted January 1, 2020 #26 Share Posted January 1, 2020 11 minutes ago, Susanc241 said: NOW has to be subjective, if it can be pinpointed at all? All I know is all my nows are whizzing by so fast a week seems like a day and a month like a week! One of the downsides of getting (a lot) older! I read somewhere a lot of nows ago that something in the brain changes as you age to give the illusion of time speeding up. But this again has to be subjective, IMO. I told my father once: It seems like it is either the fourth of July or Christmas! He just shook his head and said: It's always Christmas! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grim Reaper 6 Posted January 1, 2020 #27 Share Posted January 1, 2020 On 12/31/2019 at 11:45 PM, Still Waters said: I suppose that time is really only a construct of mans need for order. In reality time doesn't mattter at all, if we had never started measuring it we wouldn't miss it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 1, 2020 #28 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Time is a measurement. What does "time" measure? Change/Motion/Energy. Space/Time is warped by Gravity/Mass . . We measure that change ...more gravity = more warp ... More distortion of 'time'. ?? Time is what we think we experience as reality (energy/matter) constantly recreates itself . If ALL motion ceased....would 'time' continue on ? No,it wouldn't. Because it cannot exist without motion/energy. That's my story an I'm stickin to it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 1, 2020 #29 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Now can't exist. There isn't enough time in now to do anything ! Or for anything to happen ! No matter what it is....it always takes longer than Now ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 2, 2020 #30 Share Posted January 2, 2020 We are told that time Began when THE singularity Began to expand. When expansion and Motion Began. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 3, 2020 #31 Share Posted January 3, 2020 (edited) ....and the mind blowing thing about The expansion is....it is happening at Every point in the Universe. The universe has no center....every point is center. The Universe is not expanding Into anything...it is expanding into/within itself ! It's nothing like a balloon expanding outward..with an 'outer' boundary. It has no outer boundary !! It is expanding at EVERY point within itself ! There is Nothing outside of it....there is no outside . !! The reason I bring this up is because I'm wondering if ,somehow, we Experience the expansion....as the passing of time ? ! What ya think lightly? Hmmmmm ..I don't know, I guess. Fun to think about tho! Edited January 3, 2020 by lightly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jypsijemini Posted January 3, 2020 #32 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Time is an illusion. All we have is an infinite constant flow of 'now' moments (for lack of a better word). It's a current. The present moment can't be pinpointed because by the time it gets there, it's already passed. The past and future cease to exist - there are remnants that prove to us that something happened yesterday - like the dirty dishes in your sink or the half-finished project on your table. Most of the past exists in your memories and all of the future exists in your imagination. You can only use the 'Now' moments. Most of us use the 'Now' to obsess over the past or the future. We think this will help us somehow but most of us don't use the concepts of past and future constructively. The past and future are there to guide us. Past grants us with knowledge - a pattern of predictable outcomes for certain decisions, behaviours and situations. Future is always unwritten, it is not guaranteed but the concept and hope of 'then' and 'later' guides most of our 'now' behaviours. The Now is continuous presence and awareness of every present moment. It's true. There is no such thing as a 'now' moment - it instantly passes into 'past' once it's 'happened'. I think Now is just a concept to focus on that gets our head out of 'then'. Most of us are always thinking of 'back then' or the 'then' to come and we lose sight of what we're actually experiencing in each moment. The practice of meditation brings us back to the 'Now' moments. The breath. Observing thoughts as they come and go, but letting them go. Training oneself to bring the mind back to what is happening as close to 'Now' as possible so that one can invest themselves in all that exists - 'Now' moments. Right now, I am typing. Every single word is a Now moment, just as for you, every word that you read has captured a Now moment for you. And then it passes. Reading on takes you into the future, and remembering my words transfers you into the past. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted January 3, 2020 #33 Share Posted January 3, 2020 "Right now" has no length as it is a moving point in time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted January 3, 2020 #34 Share Posted January 3, 2020 It's always right now. Time waits for no one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+joc Posted January 3, 2020 #35 Share Posted January 3, 2020 2 hours ago, iridescence said: I think that eternalism holds the answer to the time dilemma, presentism being just the subjective experience of our individual consciousness. I imagine that present, past and future are just 'slices' of our consciousness that we gradually became aware of. But that makes me wonder what is physical reality after all if time makes no sense? A frozen space or NOW still needs time in order to appear. Without time there is no space. I know this is common but: So, I didn't sleep well last night. The coffee pot comes on automatically at 5. I am waiting until 5 but I was too impatient...so I got up 4:30ish and turned it on. Takes 10 minutes to make coffee... ...and went back to sleep...and dreamed, and dreamed and dreamed...woke up at 7. These dreams were like movies and took like hours to unfold...two actually....but.. ...we know in reality dreams occur in a matter of seconds. Might take you an hour to explain the dream but it is all compressed into a couple of hours... Without space...there is no time... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XenoFish Posted January 4, 2020 #36 Share Posted January 4, 2020 9 hours ago, jypsijemini said: Time is an illusion. All we have is an infinite constant flow of 'now' moments (for lack of a better word). It's a current. The present moment can't be pinpointed because by the time it gets there, it's already passed. The past and future cease to exist - there are remnants that prove to us that something happened yesterday - like the dirty dishes in your sink or the half-finished project on your table. Most of the past exists in your memories and all of the future exists in your imagination. You can only use the 'Now' moments. Most of us use the 'Now' to obsess over the past or the future. We think this will help us somehow but most of us don't use the concepts of past and future constructively. The past and future are there to guide us. Past grants us with knowledge - a pattern of predictable outcomes for certain decisions, behaviours and situations. Future is always unwritten, it is not guaranteed but the concept and hope of 'then' and 'later' guides most of our 'now' behaviours. The Now is continuous presence and awareness of every present moment. It's true. There is no such thing as a 'now' moment - it instantly passes into 'past' once it's 'happened'. I think Now is just a concept to focus on that gets our head out of 'then'. Most of us are always thinking of 'back then' or the 'then' to come and we lose sight of what we're actually experiencing in each moment. The practice of meditation brings us back to the 'Now' moments. The breath. Observing thoughts as they come and go, but letting them go. Training oneself to bring the mind back to what is happening as close to 'Now' as possible so that one can invest themselves in all that exists - 'Now' moments. Right now, I am typing. Every single word is a Now moment, just as for you, every word that you read has captured a Now moment for you. And then it passes. Reading on takes you into the future, and remembering my words transfers you into the past. You also have to consider how much we run on 'auto-pilot'. How an hour trip might last minutes or how we might find ourselves home without in recollection of the past few minutes. It is conscious awareness that seems to give us our concept of time. At least our awareness of it. As it stands and with so many distractions focus is not really that strong with the average person. Too easy to zone out. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 4, 2020 #37 Share Posted January 4, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, joc said: Without space...there is no time... I like that ! ..and iridescence says... " Without time there is no space. ! Maybe your both right ! Old Albert said space and time were linked....we call it "spacetime". . We believe that space is expanding ...right? Right. Space and Time both began with Expansion. . (Change/Motion/Energy) Well, if time and space are parts of one thing.....if space is expanding...time is expanding ! ! ?? Think about it ! Maybe time is not passing....maybe it is Expanding ! ? I'm serious. That idea might better explain the movement of time better than time 'passing'. .whatever that means. ! ? Edited January 4, 2020 by lightly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alchopwn Posted January 4, 2020 #38 Share Posted January 4, 2020 While we are on the topic, does anyone suffer from Chronophobia? "Chronophobia is the fear of time. It's characterized by an irrational yet persistent fear of time and of the passing of time. Chronophobia is related to the rare chronomentrophobia, the irrational fear of timepieces, such as watches and clocks. Chronophobia is considered a specific phobia." If you think about it, describing fear for the passage of time as irrational is a bit unfair. The truth is that we have next to no knowledge about what time actually is. Worse still, the more you think about time and try to develop a theory about it, the more eldritch and terrifying it becomes. Lying at the heart of any notion of time is entropy. Yeah, time is a very good topic for anyone trying to get a hit of existential dread and cosmicism. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Habitat Posted January 4, 2020 #39 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time: and not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections, not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time. Meister Eckhart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlookerofmayhem Posted January 4, 2020 #40 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Let's not forget that time as we describe it is from our perspective here on Earth. When we say that the Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, that is from our measurement of time. If we were spinning faster, or further away from the sun we would come up with a different number. So the measurement of time that we are used to is more of an Earthly concept than a Universal constant. A nanosecond. A minute. An hour. A millennia. All based off our perspective from Earth. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Wellington Posted January 4, 2020 #41 Share Posted January 4, 2020 The conscious experience of time is an interesting one. I think we have all had the experience of driving fast along a motorway for an hour before entering a town or city. When we get there and have to slow down its like things are running in slow motion. For those who dont drive then I recommend playing Super-Hexagon at the highest speeds then trying to play on the easiest speed to experience the same effect. During car crashes and accidents we experience time running really slow. When we zone out during a boring day at work we often find when we snap out of it an hour has passed rather than the 15 minutes that we thought. Certain drugs (legal and illegal) alter the experience of time too. We also might have occasional mind glitches where normal time flow is altered for us. For instance I remember once where for about 2 minutes everything I was experiencing was like it was in the past. Anyway, science lacks the tools to investigate the nature of consciousness so we dont know where time comes from or how it arises. We cannot experiment with our experience of time because we cannot remove ourselves from reality to test it as a fully separate entity. But I have noticed a pattern in all experiences of time flow and that is they are dependent on how much information we are gaining per second. More information per second makes time run slower, less information per second makes time run faster. Is that a purely conscious effect? Or should information per second be built into general relativity? Who knows! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+joc Posted January 4, 2020 #42 Share Posted January 4, 2020 12 hours ago, Hammerclaw said: It's always right now. Time waits for no one. On 12/31/2019 at 8:55 AM, joc said: The only thing we have is right now. It is always now. Maybe we agree on something... ...a small piece of common ground... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted January 4, 2020 #43 Share Posted January 4, 2020 24 minutes ago, joc said: Maybe we agree on something... ...a small piece of common ground... ;Like Abbot and Costello, Butch and Sundance, Lucy and Ethel, Trump and Pelosi.....oops. That went south, quick. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+joc Posted January 4, 2020 #44 Share Posted January 4, 2020 4 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said: ;Like Abbot and Costello, Butch and Sundance, Lucy and Ethel, Trump and Pelosi.....oops. That went south, quick. Jekyll & Hyde 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted January 4, 2020 #45 Share Posted January 4, 2020 3 minutes ago, joc said: Jekyll & Hyde Rick and Morty. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+joc Posted January 4, 2020 #46 Share Posted January 4, 2020 7 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said: Rick and Morty. I haven't watched Television since 2007... Beavis and...nevermind.... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ai_guardian Posted January 4, 2020 #47 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 hour ago, RabidMongoose said: The conscious experience of time is an interesting one. I think we have all had the experience of driving fast along a motorway for an hour before entering a town or city. When we get there and have to slow down its like things are running in slow motion. For those who dont drive then I recommend playing Super-Hexagon at the highest speeds then trying to play on the easiest speed to experience the same effect. During car crashes and accidents we experience time running really slow. When we zone out during a boring day at work we often find when we snap out of it an hour has passed rather than the 15 minutes that we thought. Certain drugs (legal and illegal) alter the experience of time too. We also might have occasional mind glitches where normal time flow is altered for us. For instance I remember once where for about 2 minutes everything I was experiencing was like it was in the past. Anyway, science lacks the tools to investigate the nature of consciousness so we dont know where time comes from or how it arises. We cannot experiment with our experience of time because we cannot remove ourselves from reality to test it as a fully separate entity. But I have noticed a pattern in all experiences of time flow and that is they are dependent on how much information we are gaining per second. More information per second makes time run slower, less information per second makes time run faster. Is that a purely conscious effect? Or should information per second be built into general relativity? Who knows! Science does have the tools to investigate the nature of consciousness. Since it correlates directly to brain function, consciousness and different states can be investigated by monitoring and mapping neural networks and much work has been done. If you don't believe that just talk to all surgery patients whose consciousness is manipulated via very well studied anaesthetic drugs. Before you jump down my throat, I'm not saying that we know it all, all I am saying is that I don't agree with you when you say science lacks the tools to investigate the nature of consciousness. Time, as has been succinctly pointed out already by others, is at it's fundamental level just CHANGE. That time appears to flow at different rates, or more precisely the amount of change observed at any particular moment differs is no real mystery to me. The influx of adrenaline, during a car crash for example, is a natural response so that your mind and body can, hopefully, overcome the situation at hand by doing more calculations in preparation for any adverse events. The more change one observes ie. the more inputs processed and calculations performed by the grey matter at any given moment or per second ( /s as you put it) the slower time seems to flow. This directly correlates with how time appears to go faster as we age because as we age our grey matter capacity to do calculations/processing slows and hence it observes less change per second, hence time flies. No, imo, it has nothing to do with general relativity, just to do with the amount of processing your grey matter is capable of. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightly Posted January 4, 2020 #48 Share Posted January 4, 2020 (edited) Great posts ...very interesting. I guess time really does exist ! Where we get confused is trying to make it stop for NOW. ? Time doesn't stop...it just flows.....moves....expands ? "now" moves with time... No interruptions, to accommodate a 'now'. ?? If space time is expanding at Every point...that means that the space within and without every atom is expanding at the same rate ! The atom is held together by local forces (Harte taught me that:). But the space within and without is expanding...which means?.....that the time within and without every atom is also expanding ! No wonder we 'experience' it? I do....I sence MOTION everywhere ! and at all times. Edited January 4, 2020 by lightly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerBright19 Posted January 4, 2020 #49 Share Posted January 4, 2020 According to Victor Meldrew the past, present, and future don't exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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