Is Consciousness the True Measure of Time?

[petm1]

As a observer everything that I sense is the past, from the impulses sent within my body to the photons I see, do you think that makes the information processor I call my consciousness the present?

Where is the present?

 

[S_Happens]

A modern day Zeno's paradox maybe?

With a speed limit on information transmission it's impossible for anything to observe what we can mathematically construct as "the present."

Even ignoring GR for the moment (and skipping the question of "whose present?"), I want to believe the limitations imposed on us by our own observational instruments shouldn't be what keeps us from experiencing "the present." But that is the conceited human in me. I am aware that there is a delay in everything I experience, but that doesn't mean I can get any closer to that mathematical construct. I treat all the information that I have most recently processed as "the present" and there's nothing else I can do.

It's easy to observe when looking at the stars, or observing (discrepancy between light and sound) a distant explosion where the audible delay is quite noticeable and denote those events as "the past" even while it is part of MY "present." It becomes confusing to do so with the computer screen that sits 2 feet in front of me as I type this.

I think I'm more confused after replying to this than when I started. The way I'm going to look at it is that the exact present is a useful tool for calculation, but applying that (and the inherant delay) to my experiences is not useful. I'm not sure if this is enough to serve as a distinction between the two, but that's what I'm doing.

Please forgiven any shortcomings as I am not experienced or educated in Philosophy. This topic was intriguiging enough that I could not pass it up.

 

[physics girl phd]

In the almost-to-be observed just-past?

 

[WaveJumper]

As a observer everything that I sense is the past, from the impulses sent within my body to the photons I see, do you think that makes the information processor I call my consciousness the present?

Where is the present?

There is no present,there is only the past, as far as we are concerned.

 

[Evo]

There is no present,there is only the past, as far as we are concerned.

No we consider what we experience "now" as the present, even though it has already happened.

 

[DaveC426913]

As a observer everything that I sense is the past, from the impulses sent within my body to the photons I see, do you think that makes the information processor I call my consciousness the present?

Where is the present?

Not all things that we experience are through our senses, thus not all we experience is in the past.

Abstract thoughts, such as "I feel content" are not subject to events in the past. So, yes, I suppose our conscious thoughts are our present.

 

[Focus]

No we consider what we experience "now" as the present, even though it has already happened.

Then it is the limit of the pas as it tends to the present.

 

[Coldcall]

I think framing it in temporal terms is the problem. We and everything else is moving in relation to something which is what causes time to be perceived. So there is no now, only where we have been and where we are going.

The present is whereabouts on that journey one finds oneself at the time of asking the question.

 

[petm1]

With a speed limit on information transmission it's impossible for anything to observe what we can mathematically construct as "the present."

True, we only observe one direction of space at a time, yet even a mathematical construct with a 360 view only exists in the minds eye of an observer in their present.

and skipping the question of "whose present?"

Why skip this, its the only proof I can think of for the separability of time, other than as a mathematical construct.

There is no present,there is only the past, as far as we are concerned.

As far as we can see, maybe, because I am concerned in the present about the future.

I think framing it in temporal terms is the problem. We and everything else is moving in relation to something which is what causes time to be perceived. So there is no now, only where we have been and where we are going.

The present is whereabouts on that journey one finds oneself at the time of asking the question.

How can you talk about the present without doing so in temporal terms, naming a where instead of when maybe. Where does this leave the future?

 

[JoeDawg]

Abstract thoughts, such as "I feel content" are not subject to events in the past.

Actually that is just as much an observation of the past.
One could feel contentment, but as soon as one acknowledges it or even understands it for what it is... that makes it self-reflective... which involves the past.

We are most in the present when we are un-self-reflective, that is, just doing something without thinking about it.

 

[Fra]

If we are talking about the human brain I think in terms of this abstraction.

First it's obvious that the brain can not store and hold (remember) only a limited amount of information, not all time history, as it actually happened. The brain needs to continously compress and store data selectively.

So what strategy for this compression does the brain use?

As seems hinted from som research, the brain is no optimized for remembering actual temporal sequences. Instead the brain remember the history in a form, optimized for the expected future. Ie. the brain remember what it THINKS, is of survival value. This is clearly more important than to remember irrelevant details. Only in some brain disorders(savants), does this utility get misdirected and the person gets almost supernatural skills at remembering details, like truly photographic memory. But the downside is that these people have poor skills at imagining the future, which is from the point of view of evolution and competition a disadvantage.

Somehow the retained past induces a probably future, but given that each brain, formed by it's own history, is different, each brain "sees" a slightly different future.

Similarly I think the story is with physical systems. A physical observer, can not hold an infinite amount of information, so at some point the past is about as uncertain as is the future. Clearly, from the survival point, it is more important to be able to predict the future, than to per see, remember the past.

So maybe the present can be characterized as state of expectations on the future which determines the action of the system, implicitly determined by a retained compressed part of the past.

So the present IMO is related to the definiteness of behaviour or action.

/Fredrik

 

[ConradDJ]

If we think in terms of classical physics, the present is a point on the time-continuum, i.e. the factual state of affairs at a given instant. This picture works very well for many purposes, but doesn't correspond at all well to our internal experience of present time. Because what we experience in the moment is things happening and changing, the experienced present is sometimes said to have a certain duration. But that's a logical conclusion drawn from the classical picture, not really a good description of what it feels like to be in the moment. The moment we live in is always only this moment now, but it's also ongoing.

In quantum physics, instead of a continually evolving set of determinate facts, we have a repeatedly updated set of possibilities. The moment is temporally complicated -- the past is built into it, because the current "shape" of possibilities is constrained by the factual situation inherited from previous events. Moreover, what the wave-function describes -- possibilities structured by limiting facts -- is only the "virtual" background for what actually occurs in the moment, when one system interacts with another and gets information from it -- i.e. one system becomes "present" to another. This is the so-called "collapse" of the wave-function, which selects certain possibilities as new facts, and so updates the ongoing possibility-structure of both systems.

The quantum picture is far from clear, at this point, but I think it corresponds much more closely with the temporal structure of our experience. That is, at any given moment we're experiencing our factual surroundings (given by the past) in the context of all the possibilities we anticipate may happen. The world around us at any time is, in a way, a possibility-structure contrained by inherited fact. And that is the background for what we actually witness in the "now", i.e. the coming into being of new facts, in real-time interaction among things, updating the structure of what's possible.

So in a way it's right to say that everything we experience is "the past" -- insofar as it consists of given fact -- but that doesn't really describe the full content of our experience in present time.

 

[ConradDJ]

So maybe the present can be characterized as state of expectations on the future which determines the action of the system, implicitly determined by a retained compressed part of the past.

This sounds much like what I was trying to say in the previous post...

 

[apeiron]

As a observer everything that I sense is the past, from the impulses sent within my body to the photons I see, do you think that makes the information processor I call my consciousness the present?

Where is the present?

You seem to be asking about the psychological present. Brain processing takes time (around 200 ms for a habitual level response, 500 ms to evolve an attention level response). So there is always a mental lag behind reality.

Except. The brain is actually an anticipatory device - a forward model in neural net terms. It actively predicts the future (and changes its running model in response to errors detected).

So "in the present" you are busy predicting your future (while adusting that prediction on the basis of recent past information).

For an animal mind, which runs pure, there is just this future orientation. The present in some sense does not exist. It is already being looked through to the future beyond. The animal would have a current state of orientation, but not a sharp psychological sense of this being "right now".

Humans have language and so can scaffold their brain responses - steer things. We have developed the grammatical notion of past, present and future. The habit of thinking this way. Though we are still basically anticipatory machines (memories are anticipatory images of "what it might be like to be back there"). And focusing just on "the now" is pretty impractical, as Zen practices illustrate. You can kind of pretend to do it, but not really do it.

So consciousness is about being a future oriented observer. Guessing and planning. The actual present is the located starting point - which we don't naturally see because it is where we stand to look. The past is irrelevant except to the extent it can bear on the impressions we are constructing about the arriving future.

 

[ConradDJ]

For an animal mind, which runs pure, there is just this future orientation. The present in some sense does not exist. It is already being looked through to the future beyond. The animal would have a current state of orientation, but not a sharp psychological sense of this being "right now".

Humans have language and so can scaffold their brain responses - steer things. We have developed the grammatical notion of past, present and future. The habit of thinking this way. Though we are still basically anticipatory machines (memories are anticipatory images of "what it might be like to be back there"). And focusing just on "the now" is pretty impractical, as Zen practices illustrate. You can kind of pretend to do it, but not really do it.

So consciousness is about being a future oriented observer. Guessing and planning. The actual present is the located starting point - which we don't naturally see because it is where we stand to look. The past is irrelevant except to the extent it can bear on the impressions we are constructing about the arriving future.

This also clearly relates to what I was trying to say above -- but what an interesting description you give! Many thanks.

 

[Descartz2000]

Maybe the "present" is a cognitive construction. If it refers to my experience of now, then it requires my mental processing of the concept.

 

[octelcogopod]

I think even though the information may be some ms old, we still experience that information consciously with no delay.
I'm not going to get into qualia, but what I mean is that all experience of qualia will be without delay, even though the information is older.
This is kind of the definition of consciousness in a way, the fact that all that stimuli information and memory information, while a few ms old, will still be experienced consciously in a mental present..

Odd world indeed..

 

[Santa1]

I define the present as right now :)

 

[lehel]

I'm currently taking a Psychology of Consciousness course and this is the exact topic I've been wondering about.

What is the present moment? In Special Relativity, 'now' theoretically depends on the reference point (without getting into hypotheticals involving quantum entanglement).

Speaking of the cleverness of language, it seems that an above poster who was criticizing the concept of now as merely a construction of our brains is guilty of that as well, no?

Modern physics relies on the physicality of time. so, can we easily backtrack and say 'time is an illusion?' Either time is or isn't. it's served as a good model for helping us to explain the mechanics of our univsere thus far...

So, what causes me to be experiencing this post I'm typing as opposed to a post i will write 20 years from now? What I really would like to know, if possible, is if there is a way to physically describe the present moment (besides the cheeky t = 'now').

conrads idea that 'now' is the the wave function collapsing (or at the point in space-time where quantum decoherence occurs) is very interesting. i think he may be onto something...

time has always been a mystery to me. when i was a child, i got into physics because i wanted to build a time machine. 'now', I'm more interested in the physics of experience, whether the 'observer' is actually something that is real in the game of quantum mechanics, and exactly what places our consciousness at the point on the timeline that it is.

this is a great conversation. please dissect my post and keep this conversation going.

 

[apeiron]

You are trying to map psychological time to some single certain physical model of time (of which there are quite a few views).

The place to ground a discussion of psychological time would be in the classical time course of brain processes - nerve conduction goes so fast, there are x cortical areas to get across, the evidence from response times is, etc. Relativity and QM seem irrelevant here.

But there are indeed plenty of BS quantum collapse approaches to the now of consciousness if you want to go down that route.

 

[lehel]

You are trying to map psychological time to some single certain physical model of time (of which there are quite a few views).

yet, how can you get around this when all physical models themselves are constructions from the analytical mind?

yes there are many 'views' as you say, but i guess the first real question is if time actually exists outside human consciousness. is the idea that time is the thing that "keeps everything from happening all at once," a logical idea, much like the laws of physics which keep order in the Universe?

If so, then that would be a starting point. with the establishment of time as a real physical phenomenon, one can address the passage of time, the 'present' and how the human psyche relates to it.

if not, then perhaps we should revise our physical models of the universe to not include concepts of time because the theories would be incomplete.

---

The place to ground a discussion of psychological time would be in the classical time course of brain processes - nerve conduction goes so fast, there are x cortical areas to get across, the evidence from response times is, etc. Relativity and QM seem irrelevant here.

i think that would, indeed, be part of the equation. again, you can't escape our minds working on the problem which might seem like a catch 22 it is non sequitor to the issue of 'now', and again relativity and QM are models we have constructed on the left side of our brains, so they may need to be taken a look at again, if our ideas of time are corrupt.

but, as I am writing this, i also get a sense that the 'present' is an idea to help us fit inside our concepts of time.

But there are indeed plenty of BS quantum collapse approaches to the now of consciousness if you want to go down that route.

i would only call them BS if they were disproved. I try to remain skeptical, yet open-minded. i think if we limit our consciousnesses from the realm of possibilities, we limit our scientific progress.

as much as many want to irradiate human experience from science, it is impossible, because human experience is the building block of scientific thought, much to the points Immanuel Kant had brought up.

this is all good stuff, though. i see more that 'now' is a subjective experience. and, perhaps we are inching closer to a more well-defined bridge between subjective and physical.

 

[ConradDJ]

What I really would like to know, if possible, is if there is a way to physically describe the present moment (besides the cheeky t = 'now').

This is exactly the issue I'm struggling with. My intuition is that both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are describing the "world in real time" -- physics from the standpoint of each observer's present moment... and that the deep issues we run into trying to understand these theories (and how they fit together) come from our framing them in classical terms, where the present moment has no physical significance... it's just the point on the time-line where the world happens to be at a given moment, and all such moments are alike so far as physics is concerned.

But the "now" we live in is nothing like a "point" on the timeline, like the frozen instant in a snapshot. It's ongoing... it doesn't vanish into the past, but stays here with us as the most constant feature of our existence, along with our point of view in space.

But, because there are so many other issues involved in psychological time-perception, I don't feel I can get very far by thinking about our subjective experience in time. The question I want to pursue is -- IF we assume the physical present time each of us experiences is an important feature of the world's structure, what do Relativity and QM tell us about this?

 

[petm1]

IF we assume the physical present time each of us experiences is an important feature of the world's structure, what do Relativity and QM tell us about this?

Relativity maps all events into the present via the observer, while QM tries to map the present without one.

 

[Shai-Hulud]

Thinking about the present actually makes me nervous. It's hard to think about a true 'now' because as far as my limited knowledge of physics extends, there isn't a time quanta. We're accustomed to thinking of time in terms of quanta such as seconds and minutes, but these quanta don't have an actual objective existence. If humans ceased to exist, so would minutes and seconds and any further quantifications of time. For the sake of argument, I'm going to say that the second is our smallest quantification of time. The second can thus be seen as sort of a made-up messenger particle, in the same way that the photon, a quanta of light, is the messenger particle of light, except of course for the fact that the photon has a real objective existence. When we look at point X on an object, we can say that a photon definitely was spatially present at point X, for we can see point X. We can thus truthfully label point X as a place where a photon was spatially present. Similarly, if we pass through point Y in time (where Y occupies one second/quanta), and point Y in time happens to be three seconds ago, we can also quite truthfully label three seconds ago as point Y in time. Then let's say that every sentient being on the planet is suddenly vaporized. Point X still exists, for this sudden vaporization had no effect on non-sentient objects or the spatial fabric. Point Y, however, no longer exists, for it only had existence in the minds of the humans. Point Y was based on a made-up quanta. But then one can easily argue that point Y really did have an objective existence, for that was the point in time during which a photon traveled 186000 miles, and that photon traveled that far exactly when another photon had traveled the maximum distance it could possibly have traveled since the beginning of the existence of photons. In that respect, point Y in time did uniquely exist, regardless of human consciousness and thought. But then another error still exists. We are still referring to point Y as a point. Point Y is not a point. It can be further divided. It has even smaller constituents. Point X, the light quanta, has no smaller constituents (as far as I know, anyway.). Point Y can be divided off into infinity. It has no spatial existence, no quanta; it's purely numerical. There is no smallest number; no numerical quanta--there is no shortest time; no time quanta. Thus, no point we can definably label 'here' or 'now'.

In conclusion, 'now' doesn't exist. 'Now' is a quantitized point in time that we made up because it's convenient and it works. The element of being made-up doesn't affect our calculations because time is used only for comparison. I guess. I don't really know how to state what I meant there.

 

[pe3]

My current (pun intended) understanding is that there is really no such thing as the "present". I see it only as an illusion created by the cumulative experiences, stored in our memory cells, in each point of time.

I would be very grateful to be proved wrong, since the concept of eternality does haunt me a bit.

 

[petm1]

My current (pun intended) understanding is that there is really no such thing as the "present". I see it only as an illusion created by the cumulative experiences, stored in our memory cells, in each point of time.

I would be very grateful to be proved wrong, since the concept of eternality does haunt me a bit.

Where is the "point of time" if not the present?

 

[Sorry!]

I think the present is ever constant. You can't give it a special point on a timeline but it is always with us in our current position in space. What is the present isn't what goes from the future to the past it just IS.

 

[ConradDJ]

I think the present is ever constant. You can't give it a special point on a timeline but it is always with us in our current position in space.

What is the present isn't what goes from the future to the past it just IS.

Makes sense to me. I found some notes I made awhile ago -- trying to describe this point of view and how it relates to objective clock-time:

Time “from inside” is always only this moment, now – but it’s very different from the frozen instant that’s captured in a photograph. It’s an ongoing moment where things happen all around us, where we physically connect with things in the world. The now has no duration, it doesn’t last, but neither does it vanish into the past: it stays here and changes, moment to moment. It’s where we always are, on this edge of time between the past and the future. It’s the most constant aspect of our physical existence, and therefore all too easy to take for granted. I think that’s why we really have no adequate concepts to describe it, even though nothing is more familiar to us than present time; it’s so basic to all our experience that we almost never think of it.

When I was very young, first learning how to talk, I was also learning how to map out the geography of my immediate surroundings, learning to give names to things and see them as objects existing in themselves, independent of the point of view I happened to have on them in the moment. Long before I ever began to think about anything consciously, I had already trained myself to translate my moment-to-moment experience into a stable mental picture of the world around me, as an environment that lasts through time, where things move and change over time. So as we develop into conscious beings, we’re already imagining the world we live in as if we could step outside of our particular perspective in space and time, and see things objectively, just as they are.

This ability is so basic to human awareness that we can hardly help taking it for granted, yet it’s surely one of the things that most distinguishes us from other animals, who live pretty much entirely “in the moment.” Our normal perception of the world is not one of being in present time; it often takes a conscious shift of mental perspective for us to stay focused on what we’re actually experiencing in the here and now – for example, in listening to a piece of music.

The moment itself is elusive; it tends to remain transparent, in the sense that light itself is transparent – that is, even though physically all we see is light, what we’re conscious of is not light but the things around us that the light reveals. Even though all we ever experience is the present moment, what we’re usually conscious of is the world of things around us, that last through time and change over time. That is, our consciousness automatically translates from our present-time perspective to the standpoint of objective clock-time.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with this. But it means that it can be easier for us to think about things that aren’t actually present – things that happened in the distant past, or may happen someday in the future, or are happening “now” somewhere else in the universe – than to pay attention to the moment. And when we start reflecting philosophically on the nature of things, we tend to get even farther away from our present-time awareness. That means that our conceptual frameworks – in everyday life, as well as in science or philosophy – tend to be built on our conscious perception of an object-reality that lasts through time, not on our actual connection with the world in the ongoing moment.

 

[pe3]

> Where is the "point of time" if not the present?

I don't really believe there is such thing as a "present", in the meaning that there would be a moment in time that would have such a universal meaning. I understand the special relativity so that all the points in the time are equal, pretty much like all the points in space are equal even though I am sitting here by my desk. (There's no universal "here" neither.)

Yes that would mean that all the times do exist, not only the "present" time.

Somehow I find this easier to understand than the concept of "present" which did haunt me a bit even as a kid.

 

[pe3]

>> Where is the "point of time" if not the present?

> I don't really believe there is...

Sorry, I guess I didn't really answer your question. My answer is: in every point of my (past, current and future) lifetime.

 

[petm1]

My current (pun intended) understanding is that there is really no such thing as the "present". I see it only as an illusion created by the cumulative experiences, stored in our memory cells, in each point of time.

I see the present as the processes of our conscious, cut into one second durations.

>> Where is the "point of time" if not the present?

> I don't really believe there is...

Sorry, I guess I didn't really answer your question. My answer is: in every point of my (past, current and future) lifetime.

You are your own "point of time" with your past as a reference to help you navigate in the present, I still wonder about the future.

 

[apeiron]

You need to be prepared to think about consciousness in more complex ways.

Every moment of awareness involves both fringe and focus, the general and the particular, the event and the context.

So if we are talking about temporal flow, William James described the perch and flight of consciousness very nicely.

You have a running generalised impression of what has been and what will be. A backdrop modelling involving working memories and expectations. Then this flow can get pinched up, focused around, fleeting "perches". There are little aha moments when something significant become the higher contrast departure points for fresh angles into what has just happened, what is more likely to be happening next.

And there is a neural rate for this. It takes about a third to half a second to reorientate the brain from one state of focus to another.

So in terms of "points" in a flow, about a third of a second after some unexpected occurence, or some significant event, you will be sharply aware of the fact, and also re-oriented, expectation set updated, as to what will come next.

Sometimes this lag is noticeable. Take the cocktail party effect - someone across the room saying your name or something else of personal signficance. Suddenly it is as if you were listening to that distant conversation as it was happening. You picked up the event "immediately".

Yet also you know that you are kind of mentally back-tracking as this instantly perceived event swam into true oriented awareness - you both heard the words and also have a train of thought, a fresh avenue of expectation, as a result of the words.

So the present moment is a fluid construct. Sometimes (indeed mostly) awareness is more of a smooth unbroken flow. We anticipate accurately and move seamlessly along. Other times, surprises happen and the moment gets bunched up into something distinct. There is a high contrast that creates a sharp break, a sharp feeling of before/now/after - an aha, a peak in the flow to mark a different direction starting.

It is very tempting to think of consciousness as a succession of film frames, or a sequence of computational states. So the brain gets input at time t=0 and then generates conscious output at t=300ms or whatever. But this gets the processing logic back to front.

Instead, the brain goes from output to input! At t= -300ms, it is anticipating what is about to happen. It has already generated a conscious state, a generalised mental image. It is primed. What do you think mental images are but expectations that are not being matched to actual sensory data?

Then at t=0, the anticipated input arrives (and so can be ignored). Or it contains surprises, and mismatch activity begins.

By t=300ms, mismatches are generally resolved. The brain is saying well that is what just happened, and here is what I now think about it, in terms of what I can expect next.

Where was the present in all this? Well we expected one kind of present at -300ms, the physical present happened at 0ms, and by +300ms we will have a mopped up mental state in which we are either aware things went unsurprisingly, or someone surprised us by mentioning our name in a distant conversation.

This happened just a moment ago, and we felt like we both heard it as it happened, but had to somehow turn towards it to be really sure that it happened.

All this is regular psychology or psychophysics 101. No mystery.

 

[dimensionless]

As a observer everything that I sense is the past, from the impulses sent within my body to the photons I see, do you think that makes the information processor I call my consciousness the present?

Where is the present?

I'd say that there is no present, but the effect is barely noticeable.

 

[drizzle]

[personally] I think there is no present here, it’s only past-now moments not more than 70 years [approximately] per person, the real present will be in the afterlife where the never lasting time...yah, supernatural or whatever you wana call it!

 

[ConradDJ]

Where was the present in all this? Well we expected one kind of present at -300ms, the physical present happened at 0ms, and by +300ms we will have a mopped up mental state in which we are either aware things went unsurprisingly, or someone surprised us by mentioning our name in a distant conversation.

All this is regular psychology or psychophysics 101. No mystery.

Apeiron - "Regular psychology?" Ok, but I doubt it happens very often that so much gets explained so clearly in a few sentences. Thanks for the mini-lecture! This is another post of yours I have to copy into my notes for future reference.

You mention the "physical present" as the "point in time" t=0. This is certainly how "the present" shows up in standard physics -- consider pe3's comment:

I don't really believe there is such thing as a "present", in the meaning that there would be a moment in time that would have such a universal meaning. I understand the special relativity so that all the points in the time are equal, pretty much like all the points in space are equal even though I am sitting here by my desk. (There's no universal "here" neither.)

This is really just as true in Newtonian physics -- all "points in time" are the same so far as physics is concerned. In Newtonian physics you can think of the entire universe as existing "right now" in this present moment -- in Special Relativity the "now" becomes local, not global. But in either case we're imagining the universe from a standpoint "outside" of space and time.

This is the point of view from which it makes sense to parse what happens in consciousness over a duration of +/- 300ms.

From this standpoint, it makes sense to say that "the" present moment doesn't really exist, in any important sense. But from any standpoint IN the world, it makes much more sense to see the present as something ongoing, rather than as a "point in time". Per Sorry! --

I think the present is ever constant. You can't give it a special point on a timeline but it is always with us in our current position in space.

What is the present isn't what goes from the future to the past it just IS.

This is a description of the physical present moment "from inside" -- corresponding to the present of "real time" conscious experience. The whole process you describe of expectation, sensation, discovery, looking back for confirmation, all belongs together in our experience of the ongoing "now", which has no duration. It's always only this moment -- but a continuing moment in which things happen, not a static "point" on the timeline.

I think both ways of thinking about time, from outside and from inside, are important -- whether we're describing physics or the psyche. But as I noted above, we're much more used to imagining the world "from outside" than from the standpoint of real-time experience.

 

[pe3]

Thanks Apeiron, really clear and interesting information indeed.

ConradDJ, yes I have been mostly thinking about physics (closer to my background) - but have been interested how we can feel the "present" so strongly even if does not exist.

 

[ConradDJ]

ConradDJ, yes I have been mostly thinking about physics (closer to my background) - but have been interested how we can feel the "present" so strongly even if does not exist.

Well, I agree there's no single "now" for the entire universe at once... but I don't think Special Relativity gives any reason to believe that my "now" (as I write this) doesn't physically exist -- or your "now" (as you read it), even though these two are clearly not the same present moment.

From any point of view in the universe, there's a clear separation between the factual past and the possible future -- even in Relativity. There's no reason to think that our experience of things happening in this moment -- possibilities becoming facts -- is something that only happens "in our heads".

I think that the significance of spacetime structure in Relativity is that the local ongoing "now" of each entity is physically interconnected with those of others in a complex web, along their respective light-cones, rather than on a single simultaneous hyperplane.

You might look at this thread if you haven't already seen it --

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=309445"

So it seems to me we experience the present so strongly -- in fact that's all anyone ever experiences -- because that's what does exist, physically: a web of real-time interaction-events.

We're more used to a picture of the universe "from outside" -- as a vast object extended through all space that's been in existence for billions of years. I don't think that picture is wrong. But I think there's also more to be learned about physics by exploring the structure we see "from inside", in real time. These are complementary rather than contradictory views of the world.

Hope that's of some interest, or at least somewhat intelligible.

-- Conrad

 

[SDetection]

I want to ask a question about our concept of time:
Does time go faster for a system that consumes more energy relative to another system that consumes less energy?.
I mean, for example:
When we are mentally active, time seems to go faster than when we are doing nothing. Also when we sleep, time stops for our conscious mind, and when we wake up, we find ourselves suddenly in the future. Can this be considered time travel?.
The same thing seems to apply to chemical reactions.