Nov 16, 2018 04:02 AM
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...w-of-time/
EXCERPT: Time is a contentious topic in physics. Some physicists [...] argue that it doesn’t even exist. Others [...] hold that it arises as a secondary effect of deeper quantum processes. Yet others [...] maintain that time is the sole fundamental dimension of nature. [...]
But do we actually experience the flow of time? We certainly experience something that looks like it. But if we introspect carefully into this experience, is what we find accurately describable as “flow”?
There can only be experiential flow if there is experience in the past, present and future. But where is the past? Is it anywhere out there? Can you point at it? Clearly not. What makes you conceive of the idea of the past is the fact that you have memories. But these memories can only be referenced insofar as they are experienced now, as memories. There has never been a single point in your entire life in which the past has been anything other than memories experienced in the present.
The same applies to the future [...] Our conception of the future arises from expectations or imaginings experienced now, always now, as expectations or imaginings. [...]
But if the past and the future are not actually experienced in the, well, past and future, how can there be an experiential flow of time? Where is experiential time flowing from and into? Let’s make an analogy with space. [...]
The problem is that we then construe from this that there is an experiential flow of time. Such a conclusion is as unjustifiable as to construe, purely from seeing the mountains ahead and the valley behind while you sit by the roadside, that you are moving on the road. You aren’t; you are simply taking account of your relative position on it. You have no more experiential reason to believe that time flows than that space flows while you sit quietly by the roadside.
[...] whether time flows forward, or doesn’t flow at all, or moves back and forth, our resulting subjective experience would be identical in all cases: we would always find ourselves in an experiential snapshot extending smoothly backwards in memory and forwards in expectation, just like the desert road. We would always tell ourselves the same story about what’s going on. A mere cognitive narrative—based purely on contents of the experiential snapshot in question—would suffice to convince us of the forward flow of time even when such is not the case.
The ostensible experience of temporal flow is thus an illusion. All we ever actually experience is the present snapshot, which entails a timescape of memories and imaginings analogous to the landscape of valley and mountains. Everything else is a story. The implications of this realization for physics and philosophy are profound. [...]
MORE (details): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...w-of-time/
RELATED: That Mysterious Flow
EXCERPT: Time is a contentious topic in physics. Some physicists [...] argue that it doesn’t even exist. Others [...] hold that it arises as a secondary effect of deeper quantum processes. Yet others [...] maintain that time is the sole fundamental dimension of nature. [...]
But do we actually experience the flow of time? We certainly experience something that looks like it. But if we introspect carefully into this experience, is what we find accurately describable as “flow”?
There can only be experiential flow if there is experience in the past, present and future. But where is the past? Is it anywhere out there? Can you point at it? Clearly not. What makes you conceive of the idea of the past is the fact that you have memories. But these memories can only be referenced insofar as they are experienced now, as memories. There has never been a single point in your entire life in which the past has been anything other than memories experienced in the present.
The same applies to the future [...] Our conception of the future arises from expectations or imaginings experienced now, always now, as expectations or imaginings. [...]
But if the past and the future are not actually experienced in the, well, past and future, how can there be an experiential flow of time? Where is experiential time flowing from and into? Let’s make an analogy with space. [...]
The problem is that we then construe from this that there is an experiential flow of time. Such a conclusion is as unjustifiable as to construe, purely from seeing the mountains ahead and the valley behind while you sit by the roadside, that you are moving on the road. You aren’t; you are simply taking account of your relative position on it. You have no more experiential reason to believe that time flows than that space flows while you sit quietly by the roadside.
[...] whether time flows forward, or doesn’t flow at all, or moves back and forth, our resulting subjective experience would be identical in all cases: we would always find ourselves in an experiential snapshot extending smoothly backwards in memory and forwards in expectation, just like the desert road. We would always tell ourselves the same story about what’s going on. A mere cognitive narrative—based purely on contents of the experiential snapshot in question—would suffice to convince us of the forward flow of time even when such is not the case.
The ostensible experience of temporal flow is thus an illusion. All we ever actually experience is the present snapshot, which entails a timescape of memories and imaginings analogous to the landscape of valley and mountains. Everything else is a story. The implications of this realization for physics and philosophy are profound. [...]
MORE (details): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...w-of-time/
RELATED: That Mysterious Flow
