Psych: mental condition re flow of time

[EnumaElish]

Is there a known medical/psychological condition or experience that results in a reversal of the flow of time (e.g., from the effect to the cause)?

 

[NoTime]

Hmmm. There are conditions that eliminate long term memory storage, so that the person essentially lives in the present.
I've never heard of a condition remotely like you are describing.

However, as an exercise in mental gymnastics it is possible to remember events in a reverse sequence.
I would have to say that a clinical condition like this would eliminate the possibility of perceiving the present and would either be fatal if your body motions corresponded to your perception or result in a comatose condition.
Unremembering your last meal...

Is there some reference you came across that would make you ask this or is it just curiosity?

 

[Ulysees]

If you're interested, there's an audio signal that induces the sensation that time slows down, almost to a halt.

But from effect to cause, I can't think of how this can be experienced. Can you be more specific?

 

[delta_moment]

Is there a known medical/psychological condition or experience that results in a reversal of the flow of time (e.g., from the effect to the cause)?

It's called regression. Where someone relives the past.

In it's worse form, someone whom has lost a love one, will seek them. To where it's known by those around.

 

[Javacano]

If you're interested, there's an audio signal that induces the sensation that time slows down, almost to a halt.

Could you elaborate more on this, please!

 

[Evo]

It's called regression. Where someone relives the past.

These "regressions" are usually led by people that are guilty of seeding false memories into the subject, either knowingly or through ignorance. False memories are quite easy to create.

In it's worse form, someone whom has lost a love one, will seek them. To where it's known by those around.

Again, superstition, false memories, deception and naivite are found to be the causes.

 

[Ulysees]

> > If you're interested, there's an audio signal that induces the sensation that time slows down, almost to a halt.

> Could you elaborate more on this, please!

Sorry I got confused. Audio is for improved learning, using what's called a binaural beat, where multiple tones are played simultaneously to create beat sounds in the perception. The sensation of time slowing down is another technique, it's hypnosis.

 

[Moonbear]

Is there a known medical/psychological condition or experience that results in a reversal of the flow of time (e.g., from the effect to the cause)?

I can't think of anything, and even scanned the index of the DSM IV to see if there was anything that might fit with this. The only thing that might fit with this description would be a hallucination. I don't know if there are hallucinations that are perceived in this way, but I suppose it might be possible.

 

[Moonbear]

These "regressions" are usually led by people that are guilty of seeding false memories into the subject, either knowingly or through ignorance. False memories are quite easy to create.

Unless s/he really meant flashbacks, not regression. As you've pointed out, "regression" is not a psychiatric term, but often something used by charlatans talking about "past life" experiences. Flashbacks, on the other hand, are real psychiatric conditions through which one reexperiences things that have happened to them in their past, usually traumatic events. But that doesn't fit with what the OP asked about with regard to experiencing a reversal events from effect to cause.

 

[peter0302]

If you're interested, there's an audio signal that induces the sensation that time slows down, almost to a halt.

Is it usually accompanied by smoking something?

 

[EnumaElish]

Thanks for all responses. I started with a physics point of view. Specifically, thermodynamic laws dictate the direction of time (i.e. cause ---> effect) in the known universe. For example, imagine two separate containers, one holding blue dust particles, the other red dust particles. When two separate containers are united, the two colors mix. And once they are mixed, we do not expect the red particles separate themselves to a corner, nor expect the blue ones go to a different corner.

I was wondering how this sequencing of events is wired in the human brain, and whether there are exceptions to how we are programmed to perceive the "cause ---> effect" sequence.

If there are exceptions, that could provide clues about how our brains came to be wired to represent the "reality" as we know it.

On the other hand, the absence of an exception could mean that physical laws are very deeply ingrained at the core of our brains and perceptions.

 

[NoTime]

On the other hand, the absence of an exception could mean that physical laws are very deeply ingrained at the core of our brains and perceptions.

I'm inclined to say that it's ingrained at the cellular level.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

It seems to me that since causes actually do precede effects, a phenomenon like this couldn't simply be a perceptual problem. The brain in question would need to record past events and then play them in reverse order to the conscious mind.

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[Moonbear]

It seems to me that since causes actually do precede effects, a phenomenon like this couldn't simply be a perceptual problem. The brain in question would need to record past events and then play them in reverse order to the conscious mind.

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This is why I've suggested a hallucination (as far as I know, flashbacks would also be considered a form of hallucination, but I'd have to check on that). If for some reason one's sensory system was detecting the events as they happened, but awareness of that at a conscious level was somehow delayed or disorganized, that might be a perceptual level problem...but I know of no such disorder that has such a symptom.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

This is why I've suggested a hallucination (as far as I know, flashbacks would also be considered a form of hallucination, but I'd have to check on that). If for some reason one's sensory system was detecting the events as they happened, but awareness of that at a conscious level was somehow delayed or disorganized, that might be a perceptual level problem...but I know of no such disorder that has such a symptom.

Certainly a hallucination would qualify, that makes sense. I was just separating out the recording-and-playback issue as a logical necessity, whatever the organic cause of the experience.

EnumaElish's theory that our perception of this order of cause-effect is hard-wired somehow. I certainly can't remember a dream I've had, nor a dream I've heard described to me, where effect clearly follows cause.

But I have had dreams where an event had an unreasonable or illogically large effect on subsequent events, almost as if they were somehow a cause preceded by its consequences. It seems to me that if we really had wiring in our heads that correlated cause and effect and prevented or flagged sensory experience that didn't match, that faculty would operate in our dreams and I wouldn't say that effect strictly follows cause in my own dreams or dreams that have been described to me.

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[EnumaElish]

Here is a possible example.

"Patient" or the "subject" cannot distinguish the timing of the physical effect from the timing of the inferred effect.

Imagine the subject is facing a lamp which is activated or deactivated by a switch. The subject cannot see the switch.

Suppose the experimenter disconnects the switch. The subject observes the effect ("it was light, now it is dark"). From this observation the subject concludes "the switch must be disconnected."

But the subject cannot map the actual disconnecting to a point time. Instead, the subject represents that the switch is disconnected simultaneously with the subject's inference that the switch must be disconnected.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Hmm. My first impression is that any conceptual or causative notions about the relationship between electric lights and switches can't be mentally hard-wired because those things have not existed during most of human history. I would expect the human mind to be equally accepting of the notion of lights causing effects in switches as it would be of switches causing effects in lights.

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[W3pcq]

Maybe if you give your subjects enough acid and shine lights in their eyes long enough.

 

[EnumaElish]

Maybe if you give your subjects enough acid and shine lights in their eyes long enough.

Or, by a "turn" of their DNA code or the wiring of their brain, they experience the cause and the effect in reverse (time-wise even if not logic-wise).

We know that our eyes optically record the world upside-down, but our brains correct the image. There may be brain-damaged patients who see the world upside-down, at least initially (until their brain re-learns to compensate for the optical flaw).

My question is, can there be "patients" whose brains have lost the ability to put the effect before the cause, and perceive their sequencing in reverse?

 

[CaptainQuasar]

My question is, can there be "patients" whose brains have lost the ability to put the effect before the cause, and perceive their sequencing in reverse?

My point is that it would have to be more than something about the way that incoming information is perceived, though - someone's mind would have to record information and play it back in reverse. And there would be a perceptual discontinuity when one bufferfull, as it were, of information was exhausted and a new one was taken up.

Effect following cause isn't just a matter of perception, it's the way things actually work. (I actually tried to make a post questioning whether the statement of the preceding sentence is really true, but it got deleted. No hard feelings, though.)

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[EnumaElish]

Effect following cause isn't just a matter of perception, it's the way things actually work.

I am not disputing that. I realize that your post appeared on this forum because you typed it on a keyboard before you posted it, although I didn't see you type it.

Any thoughts on how a brain-impaired person might conclude that the typing must have followed the posting, because he or she is unable to "put" the cause before the effect (especially if they didn't see you typing)? I am not saying that this type of impairment has been observed -- the point of my OP was to inquire whether anyone saw (or thought) that this type of a mental impairment exists.

 

[NoTime]

We know that our eyes optically record the world upside-down, but our brains correct the image. There may be brain-damaged patients who see the world upside-down, at least initially (until their brain re-learns to compensate for the optical flaw).

In studies using image inverting glasses, the subjects brain remaps its image processing to conform with the subjects movements. This happens in a remarkably short time.

My question is, can there be "patients" whose brains have lost the ability to put the effect before the cause, and perceive their sequencing in reverse?

Perhaps, if you could set up a situation where effect did precede the cause.
Since you can not then it seems unlikely.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I am not disputing that. I realize that your post appeared on this forum because you typed it on a keyboard before you posted it, although I didn't see you type it.

Any thoughts on how a brain-impaired person might conclude that the typing must have followed the posting, because he or she is unable to "put" the cause before the effect (especially if they didn't see you typing)? I am not saying that this type of impairment has been observed -- the point of my OP was to inquire whether anyone saw (or thought) that this type of a mental impairment exists.

Ah, I see. So there's really two different issues here: perceptual differences, and the ways that humans form models or schemas of a connected sequence of events (which I don't think falls under perception, though I don't know what it would fall under.)

In that case, the first thing that comes to mind is the concept of destiny. Wouldn't a believer in destiny say that the reason why the young King Arthur happened upon the Sword in the Stone and drew it was because he was going to be King? It was the fact that he was going to be King in the future that caused the effect of finding and drawing the sword. Even were someone else to find the Sword in the Stone and somehow get it out of the rock, they wouldn't become King because of it or if they took power would not be the real King - the sword and the crown would eventually find their way to the true monarch.

P.S. I realize you're probably talking about two people viewing the same series of events and forming schemas with opposite causation from them, the destiny thing was just the first thing that came to my mind regarding reverse causation from normal time-forward perceptions.

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[EnumaElish]

Perhaps, if you could set up a situation where effect did precede the cause.
Since you can not then it seems unlikely.

What if the cause is unobserved, and can only be deduced (inferred) from the effect, after the effect?

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I think it might also be interesting to set up an experiment where subjects are shown two possible options for causation, with neither being clearly correct, and see whether subjects opt to attribute cause to one of them or to say that they observe are causally unrelated.

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[NoTime]

What if the cause is unobserved, and can only be deduced (inferred) from the effect, after the effect?

Then if there is no observed cause, how can a non existent cause be said to be before of after the event?
The same might be asked about an unobserved event.

Seems to me that your asking "If a man in the forest voices an opinion and his wife isn't there to hear him..."
Is he still wrong?

I suppose you might consider the story of Oedipus to vaguely match your idea.
The cause (death of Laius in the future) resulted in Oedipus being thrown out by Laius thus enabling the future cause to occur.
Perhaps a bit of circular logic, but then time travel is annoying that way

 

[Moonbear]

What if the cause is unobserved, and can only be deduced (inferred) from the effect, after the effect?

Then that's not an issue of the way one is seeing the "flow of time" as you originally asked, but in the ability to use logic to deduce unobserved events. It's entirely a different question, and more likely a learning/memory problem than a perceptual one.

Can you clarify what exactly you're asking, because it seems the question is changing with each response?

 

[EnumaElish]

Can you clarify what exactly you're asking, because it seems the question is changing with each response?

That may be because at the time I posted my OP, I did not have a clear "causation experiment" in mind. My OP was intended to invite thoughts, and references, if any, on whether "perception of reverse time" has been observed. Subsequent posts questioned the possibility of setting up an experiment that would test the hypothesis of time reversal (in a mental or psychological sense). Admittedly not a medical (or physics) expert, I thought of a possible experiment during which a subject observes the effect, but not the cause (e.g., someone drops a ball from an elevated position, and the subject only sees the ball hitting the ground). The subject is then asked to "place" the timing of the cause (e.g., letting go of the ball from an elevated position) relative to the effect.

You are right, MB, that this specific experiment rests on a specific mental mechanism (deductive logic?). I am not proposing this as the only experiment to test mental time reversal. Accordingly, I am not saying that this specific mental mechanism is the only way in which time may be reversed mentally. As much as I hope to read comments on this specific example/mechanism, I wouldn't mind reading about any other experiments or mechanisms through which time reversal may be or may have been observed as a mental or psychological phenomenon; such as the hallucination example you stated above (https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1611204&postcount=14).

 

[Cryptonic]

If you're interested, there's an audio signal that induces the sensation that time slows down, almost to a halt.

Excuse the slight OT, but do you have further information on this?

 

[Ulysees]

Excuse the slight OT, but do you have further information on this?

Sorry I got confused, audio is for improved learning, using what's called a binaural beat (multiple tones are played simultaneously to create a perception of beat at 7 Hz say). The illusion of time slowing down is another technique, it's hypnosis.