10 ms·

What Time Looks Like to Philip Glass

106 points by dnetesn 8y ago

clebio 8y ago
While I like it, this isn't the title of the linked article.
- privong 8y ago
  > While I like it, this isn't the title of the linked article. The current post title "What Time Looks Like to Philip Glass" is the web page title, though it's not the in-page heading on the article.
  - dang 8y ago
    Right, the HTML doc title is legit to use for HN, especially when it's more neutral and factual, which it often is.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
andrepd 8y ago
>PG: Yes, so then I was reflecting on the universe expanding. We know that it is and can measure it, by the way time is operating, or by the way we see a star exploding far away. For various reasons, when a physicist tells me that the universe is expanding, I say “ok, let’s go back to the dance floor.” The dance floor is getting bigger, what does that mean? It means that time has to slow down. >FF: And that is exactly what the physicists tell us is happening. >PG: Yes, but when I talk to my son Marlowe and he says the summer went by very fast, and in my childhood the summer went by really slow—what if it’s really true that time is actually speeding up? One can say, oh, you’re just imagining it; of course I’m imagining it, but what if it’s really happening? In other words, for the universe to keep expanding, maybe time has to go faster too, in order to keep up. >FF: It certainly feels that way. >PG: Many of us have that feeling. Yesterday I was 20. Where did all the years go? “How can it go by so fast,” we say. But what if time is actually speeding up? If everything is changing at the same speed, there is no way to measure it. The summer of 1947 went by very slowly for me, and this summer flew by for both Marlowe and me. What I suggest is that these are not subjective, but rather objective experiences. It’s also a little terrifying. What if 1,000 years from now, a life span felt like it was only a few days? Such quackery. Why do people feel it's valid to come up with fantastical conjectures about physics with absolutely no reason to do so?
- poirier 8y ago
  Because he's an _artist_ interpreting his experience of the physics of time.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    But he is not interpreting his experience. If I understood him correctly, he is claiming his differing perception of time vs his grandchildren is due to some physical phenomenon. PS: Which is a funny thing, since this is another article trending right now at HN: https://www.wired.com/story/these-physicists-watched-a-clock-tick-for-14-years-straight/ https://www.wired.com/story/these-physicists-watched-a-clock...
    - icebraining 8y ago
      I'd say he's wondering rather than claiming. Hence the use of "maybe" and question marks.
- whiddershins 8y ago
  Of all the hacker news comments I’ve ever read, yours made me feel the worst. One of the greatest living artists talking about the subjectivity of perception and you refer to it as quackery. It hurts my heart.
  - kevinwang 8y ago
    Yeah, but he was making some pseudoscientific conjecture about the objectivity of time and using "expansion of the universe" to justify it, not merely the subjectivity of time passage. I mean, it's an interesting hot take, but it's definitely reminiscent of pseudoscience quackery.
  - braythwayt 8y ago
    Also, his so-called "music." It's just basic arithmetic. Scales, for example, can be reduced to a simple 12-bit number: https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ All this fluff about a "major" scale and its "modes" when we could just say "2741" and derive other relationships from rotating bits and a few other simple relationships. Everything else, like the "subjective feeling of a Persian Scale" is just quackery. It's just someone who doesn't understand numbers making up nonsense words.
elliotec 8y ago
What an absolutely beautiful conversation.
ericsoderstrom 8y ago
Reminded me of this interview with a japanese garden designer, and his consideration of how the elements in a garden change at different rates. Plants that grow/bloom seasonally, moss that spreads over the years, and rocks that don't change at all in human time scales. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcmuk2tN7M&t=529s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcmuk2tN7M&t=529s
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  The contrast between old Japan and new Japan is unbelievable. Such a large difference in such little time!
Jedi72 8y ago
So many people arguing here, completely missing the point of science. Whether to attempt to prive OR disprove Glass' ideas, one must think 'how can I test this idea experimentally?'
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  I honestly don't think a lot of people here know how to think artistically, which is to think in a completely free way, independent of all existing rules, systems, comparisons, judgement. The latter aspect (rules, judgement) is fairly essential for the engineering aspect of technology as well as the business aspect of starting/developing/running a company - at least just to get the thing running to begin with. HN tends to gravitate towards these ideas in terms of conversation, even though much of the science aspect of 'what we do here' has or is being dealt with by a lot of people - enough that one can begin to be much more creative than say, a construction worker building a stage according to a predesignated specification, or a painter who has to make his/her paint from berries and leaves. Most discussions I've read here, most topics posted here - more often than not are extensions of this, having to do with hard science, physics, engineering, structure, building, designing, etc. Art is often only celebrated once it has achieved a certain degree of celebrity, or if it really ties into the hard science/engineering/business/systems side of things. Kind of ironic(?) considering Paul Graham's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html Art is a process, as is experimentation. Mistakes will be made. They get corrected over time. It shouldn't matter who sees you make those mistakes as you do, but all of this is a consequence of 'groupthink' and feeling as though people are always watching you, judging every imperfection as though making errors are somehow detrimental to your entire functioning as a creative being. Errors teach, and as Bob Ross said, 'We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.'. That's a terrible philosophy when you have to calculate risk precisely, but not everything in life is about balancing risk.

106 points by dnetesn 8y ago

clebio 8y ago

While I like it, this isn't the title of the linked article.

privong 8y ago
> While I like it, this isn't the title of the linked article. The current post title "What Time Looks Like to Philip Glass" is the web page title, though it's not the in-page heading on the article.
- dang 8y ago
  Right, the HTML doc title is legit to use for HN, especially when it's more neutral and factual, which it often is.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

andrepd 8y ago

>PG: Yes, so then I was reflecting on the universe expanding. We know that it is and can measure it, by the way time is operating, or by the way we see a star exploding far away. For various reasons, when a physicist tells me that the universe is expanding, I say “ok, let’s go back to the dance floor.” The dance floor is getting bigger, what does that mean? It means that time has to slow down. >FF: And that is exactly what the physicists tell us is happening. >PG: Yes, but when I talk to my son Marlowe and he says the summer went by very fast, and in my childhood the summer went by really slow—what if it’s really true that time is actually speeding up? One can say, oh, you’re just imagining it; of course I’m imagining it, but what if it’s really happening? In other words, for the universe to keep expanding, maybe time has to go faster too, in order to keep up. >FF: It certainly feels that way. >PG: Many of us have that feeling. Yesterday I was 20. Where did all the years go? “How can it go by so fast,” we say. But what if time is actually speeding up? If everything is changing at the same speed, there is no way to measure it. The summer of 1947 went by very slowly for me, and this summer flew by for both Marlowe and me. What I suggest is that these are not subjective, but rather objective experiences. It’s also a little terrifying. What if 1,000 years from now, a life span felt like it was only a few days? Such quackery. Why do people feel it's valid to come up with fantastical conjectures about physics with absolutely no reason to do so?

poirier 8y ago
Because he's an _artist_ interpreting his experience of the physics of time.
- andrepd 8y ago
  But he is not interpreting his experience. If I understood him correctly, he is claiming his differing perception of time vs his grandchildren is due to some physical phenomenon. PS: Which is a funny thing, since this is another article trending right now at HN: https://www.wired.com/story/these-physicists-watched-a-clock-tick-for-14-years-straight/ https://www.wired.com/story/these-physicists-watched-a-clock...
  - icebraining 8y ago
    I'd say he's wondering rather than claiming. Hence the use of "maybe" and question marks.
whiddershins 8y ago
Of all the hacker news comments I’ve ever read, yours made me feel the worst. One of the greatest living artists talking about the subjectivity of perception and you refer to it as quackery. It hurts my heart.
- kevinwang 8y ago
  Yeah, but he was making some pseudoscientific conjecture about the objectivity of time and using "expansion of the universe" to justify it, not merely the subjectivity of time passage. I mean, it's an interesting hot take, but it's definitely reminiscent of pseudoscience quackery.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  Also, his so-called "music." It's just basic arithmetic. Scales, for example, can be reduced to a simple 12-bit number: https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ All this fluff about a "major" scale and its "modes" when we could just say "2741" and derive other relationships from rotating bits and a few other simple relationships. Everything else, like the "subjective feeling of a Persian Scale" is just quackery. It's just someone who doesn't understand numbers making up nonsense words.

elliotec 8y ago

What an absolutely beautiful conversation.

ericsoderstrom 8y ago

Reminded me of this interview with a japanese garden designer, and his consideration of how the elements in a garden change at different rates. Plants that grow/bloom seasonally, moss that spreads over the years, and rocks that don't change at all in human time scales. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcmuk2tN7M&t=529s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcmuk2tN7M&t=529s

Bromskloss 8y ago
The contrast between old Japan and new Japan is unbelievable. Such a large difference in such little time!

Jedi72 8y ago

So many people arguing here, completely missing the point of science. Whether to attempt to prive OR disprove Glass' ideas, one must think 'how can I test this idea experimentally?'

s-shellfish 8y ago
I honestly don't think a lot of people here know how to think artistically, which is to think in a completely free way, independent of all existing rules, systems, comparisons, judgement. The latter aspect (rules, judgement) is fairly essential for the engineering aspect of technology as well as the business aspect of starting/developing/running a company - at least just to get the thing running to begin with. HN tends to gravitate towards these ideas in terms of conversation, even though much of the science aspect of 'what we do here' has or is being dealt with by a lot of people - enough that one can begin to be much more creative than say, a construction worker building a stage according to a predesignated specification, or a painter who has to make his/her paint from berries and leaves. Most discussions I've read here, most topics posted here - more often than not are extensions of this, having to do with hard science, physics, engineering, structure, building, designing, etc. Art is often only celebrated once it has achieved a certain degree of celebrity, or if it really ties into the hard science/engineering/business/systems side of things. Kind of ironic(?) considering Paul Graham's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html Art is a process, as is experimentation. Mistakes will be made. They get corrected over time. It shouldn't matter who sees you make those mistakes as you do, but all of this is a consequence of 'groupthink' and feeling as though people are always watching you, judging every imperfection as though making errors are somehow detrimental to your entire functioning as a creative being. Errors teach, and as Bob Ross said, 'We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.'. That's a terrible philosophy when you have to calculate risk precisely, but not everything in life is about balancing risk.